


The Eternal Spring

by tessiete



Series: The Eternal Spring [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone except Obi-Wan Kenobi is Gandalf, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Korkie is a Kenobi, No beta we die like good soldiers, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Mess, Padmé Amidala Lives, Some whumping, Tatooine Slave Culture, The barest oblique implication of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 58,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22709326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessiete/pseuds/tessiete
Summary: In the end, she doesn't die. It's only that she feels like she might. Instead, she goes to Tatooine, and she takes Obi-Wan with her.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Obi-Wan/Infinite Sadness - Relationship, Padmé Amidala & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: The Eternal Spring [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1869592
Comments: 177
Kudos: 299





	1. gehat'ik

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so if you recognise the title, or the opening chunk, it's because this story is being reworked. I'll keep the original one-shot as a chapter, because I don't want to, you know, take it away from anyone who was quite happy with it, BUT -
> 
> I wanted to fix it.
> 
> And in doing so, it's...really expanded from my initial idea. I'm not sure everything I'm planning will come into it, but I do actually have an outline. And I have a lot of people to acknowledge. First, I've borrowed stuff from fialleril's Tatooine Slave Culture. I've tried to be as faithful to her work as possible, but I also haven't seen her around since like...October? I've also referenced a bunch of things out of ruth baulding's Lineage series, and plan to continue to do so. Anything related to Naboo culture is my invention. Unless it's Lucasfilm's invention. In which case, it's not mine, but I definitely drew from the little legends/canon stuff there was.
> 
> Um...I think that's it? As per everyone else here, I love feedback. I love comments. And I'd love to know what you think. Thank you! 
> 
> \- tess

_“O, Mother! Mother! Hear me now, I cry,  
_ _And pity her that comes to you debased.  
_ _Now wretched, and abandoned here she lies,  
_ _Who hath unto a man bestowed her grace.”_  
  
\- The Forlorn Queen, Myth of Ancient Naboo

* * *

In the end, she only _feels_ as though she's dying. But she doesn't. No one truly dies of a broken heart. Not with medbays, and droids, and bacta, and two devastated Jedi standing guard.

Yoda is quick to resign himself to exile, and she thinks that Obi-Wan would follow, except that she's not dead, and he feels he owes her something – something he means for Anakin, and she's the nearest thing. He stays to give her an apology.

“I have failed him,” he says, voice hoarse with a thousand wordless repetitions. “I have failed him.” And when he's exhausted that mantra, he says, “I'm sorry.”

Padmé knows what Anakin would say to this, but she is merciful, and says nothing. She is not Anakin. She is not the ghost of his worst fears realized. She is not a symbol of Obi-Wan's failure made manifest. She is alive, lungs breathing, heart beating. She is the mother of two infant children who have come into the world earlier than they were meant to, who have slept through the terror and grief of their conception, and who wake now to death. Despair. The extinguishing of Light. She has protected them until now. She has cradled them inside her for months, and she will hold them still for as long as the stars pierce the night. As long as there is life within her. As long as there is hope.

“We'll take them home,” she says.

“I'm sorry, my lady?” Obi-Wan says, unfurling himself from the dark corner of her cabin when he's planted himself these past few days. Though, in space, no solar cycle exists, and she knows he hasn't marked the passage of any such time with either sleep or repast.

“Luke, and Leia,” she says. “The children. We'll all go home.”

Obi-Wan's posture wilts with resignation, as a flower gives up in a drought. “Naboo is a Republic stronghold,” he murmurs. “The Chancellor's roots there are deep, and his poison has infected the minds of the people with rot. The forests of your home will have no spring this year.”

“Then we'll find a summer.”

Obi-Wan shivers, and draws his cloak closer to his trembling form. “My lady, there is nowhere you might escape this Dark.”

* * *

They land in Anchorhead, just as the horizon swells to meet the sky in a raging tide of oblivion. A sandstorm. Obi-Wan has seen one before, but only from within the indifferent carapace of Amidala's royal yacht. Padmé remembers that storm differently.

She remembers trailing sullenly behind the broad shoulders of Qui-Gon Jinn, as the wind rose, and sand bit first at her ankles, then her neck, and face. She remembers holding one hand up to shield her eyes not from the glaring sun, but from the particles of earth that jumped and swirled eager to blind her. She remembers a dry palm slide into her hand, and callouses too numerous, and too rough for any child. She remembers he chastised them with all the worldly experience of any nine year old native, and offered them shelter with all the compassion of a saviour.

That night, she lay curled up against the hard, dirt floor, a thickly woven blanket draped over her. The nights on Tatooine, she'd been told, could be very cold, indeed. Colder than space travel, she'd wondered, and so she'd discovered herself, as she shivered in the dark. She lay there, listening to Anakin's untroubled breathing. Qui-Gon's whispers. Shmi's tears. And outside, the howling grief of the wind seemed to cry with her, the sand whispering its comforting lies as it ravaged the soft sandstone hut, already pockmarked from innumerable storms before. The grains particulated the wall, each mote knocking, begging entry. _Let me in, let me in that I, so soft in my silence, may break you in my rage. I, who may slip through your fingers, may strip you to bones. I, who may shelter you from the suns, may burn your mortal flesh to ash. I, who by day doth stand beneath you all, may never yet be understood in return. But hear my voice, and let me in._

Anakin told her that the sand was a trickster. A liar. It murmured in a soft, and soothing tongue. It reached out with gentle hands. It promised water in the desert. But as soon as you gave in to its lies, it would scourge you just as quickly as the suns. _A child of Ekkreth,_ Anakin said. _Like me._

“Anchorhead,” says Padmé, now. “We could make it to Beru's.”

Obi-Wan dips his head, withdrawing further into the folds of his cloak, the deep hood only emphasising the depths of the hollows around his eyes, and in his cheeks.

“A risk,” he counters. “We can't afford connecting ourselves to anywhere Anakin might look. Or anyone.”

“But –”

“For your safety, my lady. And theirs.”

But in defiance of his will, there are no transports willing to brave the storm, and no mind trick can overcome that instinctive impulse for survival. The storm looms high before them, and with Luke strapped to her chest, and Leia strapped to his, Padmé can no longer be lead by the hubris of the Jedi. She takes his hand, and turns them east.

When they reach the modest compound of _lukkanal_ Lars, and his wife, they are welcomed in with smiles, and warm hands, the ritual touch of hands to foreheads – _Chowbasa, chowbasa –_ and though he flinches, Obi-Wan suffers the greeting to continue until the suns are suffocated in the heavy dust, and the artificial lights come on.

“Come, sit,” Beru pulls Padmé into a small antechamber, deep inside the house. Underground they cannot hear the wind shriek in outrage at their close escape, though Leia howls her own displeasure loudly enough to drown out any god. Her call is wet and wretched in the way of the newly born, and it echoes of the bare stone of the walls.

Adult voices try to soothe her, and hands as large as her whole body take turns rocking, and cradling her. Owen smiles, and tries to jolly her into happiness. Obi-Wan murmurs softly, hushing her over and over again. Padmé presses her into her neck, and weeps with her, but she'll have none of their comfort.

She screams as loudly as she had over Mustafar, as though her arrival on this desert world of her father is another birth. Luke, wide-eyed and silent, stares, the sandy hues of Obi-Wan's beard filling his vision like endless dunes, while his sister out-screams the storm.

In desperate mortification, Padmé wraps her girl in her arms, and moves deeper into the house, burying them beneath the empty land. The air gets cooler. Damper. The lights dim, no longer the ones approximating daylight that snap to life automatically during a storm. As she approaches the lowest levels, the lights glow merely to show the way without disturbing the peace. She can hear water trickle, and the hum of the machinery. She can smell wet clay. Leia still weeps, burbling and hysterical, broken by great, choking breaths before breaking fresh with renewed sorrow. Padmé's arms tire, and she fears that Leia will never stop. What sort of mother is she that she can't even comfort a child who asks for nothing but food, rest, and love?

On her hundredth circuit of the room, Beru comes in with some milk. It sits, steaming wistfully in her hands.

“Bantha milk,” she says. “For a dreamless sleep.”

Leia has been coaxed from outrage to restless fretting, protesting every adjustment, every change of pace, and she grumbles as Padmé pauses to acknowledge her aunt.

“Oh,” Padmé says. “Thank you, but she's too young, and I'd rather not –”

“No,” Beru laughs. “For you. When she's settled.”

Padmé's skepticism must show, because Beru laughs again as she sets the milk down on a small table by the door.

“She _will_ settle,” she vows. “They always do.”

“Have you raised many children?” Padmé asks. She doesn't mean to snap, but she's afraid her terror and exhaustion more than colour her words.

Beru is good enough not to take offence.

“Very many,” she assures her. “My grandmother was a midwife. She was born a slave, and even when she gained her freedom, she still assisted with many births.”

“I'm sorry,” Padmé says. “That must have been difficult.”

“There are no easy births in the desert, but my grandmother taught me a lot. She said that Ar-Amu is with her children, and knows what it is to love a child. I promise you – they always settle.”

Beru hasn't asked, but she has noticed Anakin's absence, Padmé's distraction, and Obi-Wan's barely contained anguish. Her compassion brings Padmé to tears, and she weeps with her daughter, again.

“Let me,” Beru says, arms outstretched. “The young always feel the whips of fate more keenly. It cuts deeper into their flesh. Let me hold her. Drink your milk.”

“I don't want to sleep,” she protests. “Obi-Wan –”

“Has already had his share, and sleeps.” Beru cocks her head. “He needed hardly more than a suggestion, and a firm hand. Fathers always sleep before their children. Mothers after.”

“He's not the father,” Padmé asserts.

“With names like Luke and Leia, I never thought he was,” Beru replies.

Padmé lowers her face to Leia's, brushing her lips over the feather-soft skin of her cheek. “Anakin chose them,” she whispers.

“Did he tell you why?”

Padmé nods.

“For Leia the Mighty, and Luke who is free.”

Beru smiles.

“In Old Naboo, _lucas_ means light,” Padmé says. “We thought it was...it seemed destined.”

“That is interesting. It's enough to make one wonder,” Beru says. “Does Leia hold meaning there, as well?”

“No, I just thought it sounded pretty,” Padmé says.

Beru laughs again, quiet. She steps closer to mother and child, and this time, when Padmé hesitates, Leia doesn't fuss. Beru leans in to peer at the face so furrowed in displeasure as to seem just one large fold.

“Very pretty.” Beru murmurs her agreement to the baby. “And a fierce warrior. Just. Merciless.”

“ _Ten Ileos, ulas lucas,”_ says Padmé. The words feel weightless on her tongue, as though spoken without thought, without conviction, but so deeply part of her she can't refrain.

“What is that?” asks Beru.

Padmé sighs. She strokes one finger down the length of Leia's face, over her shoulder, her chest, and rests it in the tiny palm. Small fingers cling instinctively, and in the arms of her mother, she finally begins to calm.

“It's a poem of my people,” she replies. “A very old one. It means, 'from mercy, into light'. Or 'through compassion we find enlightenment'. The author was speaking from a time of civil war, and was rather tired of it, I suppose. I can imagine how he felt.”

“My people have no voice to speak,” Beru says. Though Padmé can feel her defiance, her disbelief of such a sentiment, she counters quietly in a peaceful exchange. “Some people do not deserve mercy.”

“We all do,” Padmé says.

* * *

Eventually, her arms weary, and she gives in to Beru's patient comfort. Padmé hands over her daughter, and cups the now cold milk, heading back towards the upper den in search of her son. She finds him asleep, bundled into the voluminous folds of the Jedi's robes, his face pressed close to the heart of the likewise unconscious master. They breath together, drawing peace and giving the same, complementary in their slumber. It's the first time Padmé has seen Obi-Wan rest – ever – and surely, the first time he's slept in days.

He'd been in battle before this, she recalls. Posted in the Outer Rim...Utapau, she thinks. Anakin had mentioned it, perhaps. Or maybe it had come up in the Senate. The end had come so fast, she can't recall clearly the order in which it fell. Utapau, then Coruscant. Then Mustafar. And from there, he'd been with her. Awake. Alert. Running through wild space, back to the Outer Rim.

She'd slept fitfully, and only in the short bursts allowed by motherhood, but she'd slept some, all the same. He had not. Perhaps fathers slept first, but evidently Jedi did not ever rest. But now, they're gone. Despite the Order's disavowal of all personal possessions, there must be so many things he's left behind, so many people lost.

She steps closer, her shadow falling over Luke's face, casting him into darkness, but he only stirs to turn his face deeper into Obi-Wan's shoulder. His own face is dimly illumined by the pale blue glow of moonlight as it reflects off sand dunes, and tumbles down from above, the sandstorm exhausted, and the _bochu_ drawn to allow the cool of early dawn inside. He's pale. Ghostly, and hollowed out, and Padmé reaches towards him. Her palm brushes a wandering shock of hair from his eyes, her fingertips press the lines from his brow as though smoothing wrinkles from velvet skirts. He doesn't move, except to breathe. She turns her hand against his temple, her knuckles tracing the slope of his cheekbone, his jaw, his chin. She remembers Naboo. Kadavo. Zigoola. Rattatak, but she's never seen him like this before. There's something translucent about him, as though stripped down to less than essentials, less than bare bones. He's simply an idea. An abstract concept. A child.

Someone's child.

Somehow, that's never occurred to her before. He'd always been Anakin's old master. He'd always had an air of authority, of competence, of sobriety, and a seriousness that gilded even his most irreverent demonstrations of wit and charm. He was the sort of person whose honorific usurped his own name. Master. General. The Negotiator.

But then, she thinks, she'd once been Queen.

And he'd been Padawan.

And then she thinks of Ahsoka, and Qui-Gon Jinn, and she wonders if Obi-Wan has ever been held as closely as he holds Luke now. She's sacrificed so much, first as a ruler of her people, as their voice in a Republic at war. As a wife. But as a mother...she's certain now she could never give up her children. What mother could? What mother, seeing their son as Obi-Wan is now – cold, and white – and feeling his aching soul the way she can, as blind to the Force as she is, what mother would give her boy up? And if she could see him now, and if she could go back...would she do it again?

Disturbed by the weight of her consideration, and the miasma of her thoughts, Obi-Wan shifts, his face turning into her touch for a moment before consciousness returns. His brows draw together, her hand falls away, and he sits up with a start.

Luke frets, a small noise of protest burbles in his throat. He clutches at the rough fabric enrobing him, and finding a sturdy handful, drops back into sleep. Padmé hardly breathes. Eyes sky-blue, and desert-dry meet hers.

“My lady,” he says. “My apologies. I hadn't intended to drift off, but –”

“It's not your fault, Obi-Wan,” she says, and smiles. “Aunt Beru got the better of you, I'm afraid.”

She brings her empty hand up to join the other wrapped around the clay cup she still carries, and nods at its equally empty counterpart abandoned on the narrow ridge above the inlaid bench he sits on. A thin rim of dried blue foam clings to the edge of the vessel, the only evidence of their host's cunning. “Bantha milk,” she says. “Apparently they serve it warm to children for its soporific effects.”

Obi-Wan grimaces, and glares at the cup for aiding in his defeat. “My master used to ply me with _hatha_ and _peruma_ ,” he says.

“Were you a particularly fussy child, Master Kenobi?”

He stands, plucking the offending drink from Padmé's hands, as he passes her back her son, careful to keep Luke as still as possible in the transfer.

“No,” he replies, softly, his eyes fixed on the babe. “I had nightmares. Visions of the future.” A crooked smile breaks across his face like spidering ceramplast. “Some Jedi are so blessed.”

She looks at him then, struck with a renewed sadness, a pity...or perhaps, an envy – something she can't define – and he meets her gaze with a sincerity and innocence she's unprepared for. So she stays silent.

“Bad dreams pass in time,” he says. “I think I'll see if Owen requires any assistance this morning. Get some sleep, my lady Amidala.”

Padmé watches, her arms full of her child, as he turns away. His shoulders hunch, his hood droops over his eyes, his hands fold into his sleeves as he draws his cloak more tightly about him. He mounts the stairs moving slowly, and as he climbs, the mournful blue of dawn transforms him from a spectre into a shadow, bleeding out into the clear sky beyond.

* * *

Owen Lars has had little occasion to know sorrow, or hardship beyond a poor harvest. He's young, and though both death and famine can break a man, neither of these are so uncommon on an Outer Rim planet as to be remarkable. So Owen counts himself lucky. His father was born free, and his before him. He'd inherited a farm of modest means, and reliable profit, and when he fell in love with Beru Whitesun, and she with him, there was never any consideration spared for possible impediments to his future happiness as her husband. Of course, the loss of Shmi had been terrible – the one black spot in an otherwise relatively uncomplicated life – but it had not been truly _his_ loss _._ She was his father's wife, not his mother of whom he had no memory. Her capture had been horrifying, her rescue brutal, and her death tragic, but it was not without precedent on Tatooine. It was not unimaginable. And for him, it was not insurmountable.

The Tuskens were dangerous. The desert was merciless. And he was a pragmatic man.

When he hears about the loss of the Republic, of the Jedi, of Anakin, he's touched in much the same way as before. These things happen, and he cannot quite fathom the devastation wrought by concepts so completely foreign to himself.

He can see it weigh on the visitors, though. Padmé frightens him with her Eopie-eyes, and ever-ready tears, and the exotic softness of motherhood, so he exercises his compassion on Obi-Wan, taking to him like an older brother – never mind the four or five years that put him younger. But Obi-Wan is quiet, thoughtful, and sad. Nothing like the boys Owen used to pal around with in Mos Eisley on festival days, or the rough-spoken men he plays sabacc with whenever he can find an excuse for a night off. He watches him with an intensity that makes Owen's skin prickle, and he has never seen him smile. There's something delicate and feral to this warrior of the Republic, something that makes him feel tender in the way he feels about the little _zerda_ kits that emerge from the shelter of their mother's den in the early season. It's an odd way to feel about a man, so he slaps him on the arm, grabs him by the shoulders, and throws encouraging punches meant to coax the Jedi into laughter as he trails his host around the farm, learning about vaporators, and retro-fitting droids, and how to read the future in an empty sky.

He offers to take him into town one night, a ten-day after their arrival, but Obi-Wan demurs, claiming he'd rather not impose on Owen's plans. Of course, the Jedi doesn't see Beru jutting her chin towards the door in sharp suggestion. It's not _his_ ribs her elbows find whenever she thinks he's been quiet or distracted for too long. So he presses. In the morning, when Obi-Wan rises with him before first sun to check the perimeter lines, he mentions the promise of a good crowd. At dawn meal, he tops Obi-Wan's cup with a second serving of water, and hints that he'd better prepare to be plied with quality _fierdrek_ over cards. And in the evening, he tosses Obi-Wan his cloak, dusty with sand, but not yet bleached by the sun, and says, “We can take the speeder, as long as you promise to not let me put it up for stakes later on.”

The hint of humor drifts across the Jedi's face, as he catches his robes. He makes no move to don them, instead twisting them in his hands, and draping them over his arms.

“I'm afraid it'd be something more than foolish to accompany you, tonight,” he says. “But you have my thanks nonetheless, Owen.”

Beru leans out from behind the arc to the entrance of their cooking space. She raises her brows, expectantly, and Owen tries again.

“It's between friends,” he says.

“Owen –”

“Thing is,” Owen cuts in, “If you don't come, Beru's gonna have my hide.”

So, Obi-Wan relents, and after a modest evening meal, the two men wrap themselves in heavy brown dusters, and head off into the night.

* * *

It's hardly three hours later when Beru leaps to her feet, her body in motion, and her head cocked, listening to the approach of something Padmé can't quite hear.

“They're back,” she says, but she frowns.

And then, Padmé can hear the whine of a speeder as it draws nearer, echoing out over the dunes. A door slams, and in the next room, the children wake to fuss.

“Something's gone wrong.”

Owen sweeps into the house, Obi-Wan draped over his shoulders. There's blood running freely down his face, but he's conscious, and enraged, which is more than can be said for the Jedi. Before Padmé can process anything, Beru is already pulling chairs out of the way, and making space for Owen to maneuver his burden through the cramped quarters.

“Here, Owen,” she says. “Put him down over here.”

She clears a low bench of partially cleaned tools, and grease stained rags, and Padmé finally finds herself moving to help.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Star's end,” Owen curses, as he lowers Obi-Wan to the bench with something less than care. “This karking _koochoo_ went and got himself blasted just as I turned up a Pure Sabacc!”

He steps back, still fuming, his disdain focused on the unconscious man, as Beru flits around him. She pulls the ties free from her belt, and presses the hem of her apron to her husband's brow, wiping away the blood, ducking her face to meet his eyes, and checking them for a more insidious injury.

“Are you hurt?” she asks.

Padmé drops to her knees beside Obi-Wan, pulling back his cloak, and running her hands from shoulders to knees, searching for a wound.

“I'm fine,” Owen snaps, as Beru's fingers find a tender spot on his skull. “Just the fripping Jedi.”

“Where?” Padmé asks. The Jedi's pale, and a bit feverish, but she doesn't think he'd looked much better before they'd left.

“His leg,” Owen says. “Dumped the pot, flipped the table, started a brawl, and high-tailed out the back before I could do so much as call my hand! By the time I met him at the speeder, he had _that._ Swore up and down he was fine, right until he passed out, about ten minutes ago. Karking koochoo.”

Padmé's hands find liquid warmth, high on Obi-Wan's thigh, and she presses hard against the wound. There's a puncture mark, about the circumference of her finger. He wasn't blasted – or at least, not exclusively – and judging by the saturation, whatever it was nicked an artery. But it's not bleeding anymore. Her hands are pale, and white with shock, but they are not doused incarnadine. She holds her fingers to his neck, and waits for his pulse. Still steady, still strong.

“It's okay,” she says, twisting her head to address her hosts. “I've seen this before. When they can – when it's...it's a field technique that Jedi use. Anakin used to – he'll be fine.”

“Magic?” Beru regards him skeptically, and Padmé feels a fierce protectiveness thrill through her. She leans across Obi-Wan, blocking him from inquiring eyes.

“No,” she asserts. But not quite science, either. “We should dress this, in the meantime. It still needs treating.”

“Of course,” Beru agrees. She places Owen's hand beneath her own, pressing the cloth to his still bleeding head, and moves into the _mahasala._ The bread oven, never left to burn out, is stoked, as she pulls down a small earthenware basin from a cupboard. A small trickle of precious water rings out as it is poured into the bowl, and while it warms atop the stove, Beru gathers and shreds a small square of clean linen.

His anger running dangerously close to fear, Owen kicks at one of the wooden stools, and storms out of the room. Almost immediately, tender whispers are heard from where Luke and Leia are fretting, their uncle using their upset as a way to soothe his own.

Padmé listens long enough to hear Leia's cries hesitate, then turns back to the task at hand. Beru kneels beside her, bearing the warm water, and the cloths.

“You'll need to remove his breeches. Would you like some help?” she murmurs, as steady as she has always seemed to Padmé. There's no trace of the apprehension she'd thought she'd heard a moment ago, but still, she wavers. Obi-Wan is intensely private. She's not certain _she_ should be privy to this indignity. But the injury and his unconsciousness persist, so she nods briefly at Beru.

“Trust me,” the woman says. “There's a lot more limb to a grown body than you'd imagine. Especially a senseless one.”

Her words prove true as the two women struggle to strip the lower vestments away without aggravating the wound, or tumbling the Jedi to the ground. They turn him this way and that, shimmying the fabric down his thighs, finally to reveal an ugly little divot at the top of his leg. A trail of red tracks their progress of disrobement, but as Padmé had hoped, the trickle of new blood had all but stopped.

Beru works quickly, with practiced authority, tying a thick tourniquet above the wound, while Padmé cleans and packs the lesion with the few remaining strips of fabric.

“I don't suppose you have any bacta on hand, do you?” she asks.

Beru smiles with grim humour. “That witchcraft belongs to the Core, as well,” she says, but she casts one hand across Obi-Wan's face with such kindness, that Padmé knows there's no malice in her prejudice.

They rinse their own bloody hands in the remaining water, now cooled by the evening air, and Beru pulls the low, three-legged stool, most recently the recipient of Owen's anger – over to the cramped bower.

“Sit,” she says.

Padmé rises, rests on the stool, and drops her head to her arms as she crosses them on the bench before her, a little ways from Obi-Wan's head. She must fall asleep, because she wakes to a sore back, and someone stirring against her arms. Beru is gone. The house is silent and still. Obi-Wan blinks at her, not quite awake, but no longer so deeply entranced.

“I told you,” he whispers. “It isn't safe to stay.” And he slips back into sleep, taking the last word, and any security Padmé had allowed herself to feel since Mustafar.


	2. arpat

_These fields which hold the bounty of the earth  
_ _Doth yield their crops in intermingled heaps.  
_ _So first, you must determine each their worth,  
_ _Accounting for the whole of what you reap._  
  
\- The Forlorn Queen, Myth of the Ancient Naboo

* * *

By the end of the month they find a little hut on the near side of the Jundland Wastes. Obi-Wan's been holding out – for an emergency, he says – and with the few credits Bail Organa pressed into his hands on Polis Massa, he manages to secure ownership. Owen, still smarting from his unfortunate loss at the sabbac table, reluctantly agrees to go with them to evaluate the property.

Much like the days spent shadowing him on the Lars farm, Obi-Wan is a dutiful student as Owen grumbles about this and that, declaring the place barely fit for habitation, let alone for use as a productive farm.

“You've got the lines run in here,” he says, kicking sand off the exposed base of an old vaporator unit. The processors are all gone, and there's little left other than a carbanoid base plate, and frayed wires. “Won't help you much, seeing as they've been open to the elements for years, seems like.” He crouches down, and Obi-Wan crouches with him. His fingers tug at the cords, and run under the metal slate. “See? This needs to be airtight, but the plastoid's all dried out, and with the sand running in, that'll be down into your microdistiller. Should be an access hatch nearby, but that's probably seven klicks under sand by now, too.”

Obi-Wan nods, and frowns, but doesn't seem particularly discouraged. The two of them continue to survey the damage in the dim light after first sunset, while Beru helps Padme settle into the main room of the little shelter. She's brought hand-woven baskets filled with linens, and glass vessels, some with the most extraordinarily delicate figures twisting through their crystal depths.

“Really, Beru, this isn't necessary,” Padme protests.

Beru smiles, and continues dusting empty shelves, and filling them with donated goods.

“It is,” she says. “We're family. Besides, if there's one thing to be had cheaply on Tatooine, it's glass.”

“But these are exquisite,” Padme says. She unwraps a delicate drinking bowl from a scrap of cloth. It's impossibly transparent, but at the base, just as the side folds into the bottom, a small, ghostly herd of bantha parade around the circumference, a tiny infant bringing up the rear.

“Those were given by friends,” Beru says, “In return for some singing I did, a few years ago.”

“Singing?”

“Telling stories, soothing hurts, bringing some comfort in song. Out here, most injuries are treated without painkillers, so we keep pain at bay with more traditional methods.”

“I wish I could say that were beautiful, but it sounds ghastly.”

Beru laughs. “You've only just given birth. I'm sure for you, the memory of pain is quite strong.”

Padme smiles in barest agreement. She thinks it monstrous that anyone should be denied succor, but already she sees how different life is in the periphery of the galaxy. And she's too well-mannered to disagree with her host. She's been fighting so long the instinct to react with righteous upset that it sits just behind her teeth, and she has to bite her lip continuously to restrain it. It's not that she finds their traditions offensive, but she is terrified of the desperation which motivates them. She doesn't want to stay somewhere people speak in a secret language to avoid the sting of the whip, where they sing to dull agony, where they dream of revenge, and cling to the impossible hope of water in the desert. She doesn't want to live here. She wants to go home.

Naboo has a liquid core. There are fields, and forests, and oceans, and rivers that run wide and vast in one city, before exhausting themselves as charming, domesticated creeks on the edges of peaceful farmland. There is one sun, and three moons, and so many gods to pray to you can be certain that someone will always hear your prayers.

And yet, Palpatine had been born there, too.

“There is a good sized pantry just off the fresher,” Beru says, oblivious to Padme's musings. She's finished with the cupboards, and is collecting the discarded rags into a tidy stack for future use. “You should be able to keep enough in there to go a few months before risking a trip into town, if you're careful. You've a cellar, but I'd bet it's collapsed. The structure is there, probably to provide maintenance access – perhaps Owen could help in digging it out, some time, although...”

“That's something to worry about later,” Padme agrees.

Beru sighs. She wipes her hands on her apron, and with her hands on her hips, evaluates the room beyond the _tullpa_.

“Your biggest problem is where to sleep,” she observes.

And this, too, is something Padme's been considering.

The front door has long since disintegrated into rusted shards, and Beru had hung a long stretch of roughly-woven bantha _wol_ across its entrance upon their arrival. It would do a fair job at keeping the heat of the suns at bay, but can do nothing to keep the winds, or the sands outside. Or intruders. In the spangled light that inches through the wide weave, the main living space seemed large enough at first – but that optimistic assessment failed to take into account its emptiness. There was no chest, in which to keep their few possessions, no chairs to rest upon, no table to eat at.

Aside from the fact that they lacked furniture, Padme finds herself piqued at the idea she ought to _sleep_ in the _front room_ of her dwelling. That was something never to be countenanced on Naboo, and certainly something she'd always avoided while on Coruscant. While not as beholden to a tradition, most architecture there favored designs which emphasized privacy. Sleeping in the same room you might entertain even the barest acquaintances was not... _done._

But that was apparently no matter to Beru.

“The twins can squeeze in anywhere, but you've nowhere to put a second pallet for the Jedi,” she says, her concerns much more practical.

 _Ah...well._ Padme opens her mouth, but no ready solution presents itself. One of them could sleep on the floor, though that would only be temporary. Picking up and putting down a bed would be a tedious daily chore, and one or the other of them would forever feel an inconvenient piece of furniture. And yet, giving over the entire space to a permanent sleeping arrangement would be equally impractical. Impractical, and _invasive.  
_

They could share. The discomfort of such a thought is none of hers, she realises. She's already sacrificed so much privacy – having children, caring for them, and constantly fueling a body that feels more like a home than a piece of art has cured her of any shame, or immodest prudery she might have once harbored. But Obi-Wan...she watches him. She sees his smile fade, and his head turn from conversation. She sees his eyes search for invisible things on the horizon. She sees him reach for shadows, and ghosts, as though he'd like to join them as the sun chases them over the dunes. And she can see him fold in on himself, walls collapsing on walls whenever he catches her eye, until the tension between them pulls so tight she feels certain he can hear the horror and sadness that snatches at every ragged edge of her mind, and he looks away. She thinks _he_ might prefer some privacy. Somewhere he can unravel in secret, and alone.

But she can't say that.

Padme feels the weight of Beru's gaze, her expectation slowly shifting from benign observation towards more prurient curiosity. Yet, no matter which claustrophobic corner of the room Padme's eyes seek out, she can't seem to extricate herself from the problem. She'll think about it later.

“That's fine,” she says, dropping into the crisp tones of command she hasn't used for weeks. “Master Kenobi is used to close quarters. He was a general in the Grand Army, you know.”

Beru doesn't argue, but her silence is expressive enough, and Padme knows that if she were any other friend, Beru would tease. And if Beru were any other friend of _hers_ , Padme would tease her back. But here they are, practically strangers, hovering on the edges of an intimacy sponsored by grief. Before the air becomes too heavy with it, Padme inhales, breathing the darkness inside her, sucking it down, and burying it beneath straight shoulders, and clear eyes. Her mouth turns up in a tight smile, as she evaluates the space for more possible improvements.

“I think a _haffa_ chest would be useful.” she says. “I'm sure wood is expensive, but it will keep out the air, and provide a place for our more delicate remembrances.”

There's one more beat of Beru's defiant heart, but she, like Padme, knows when to say nothing. Instead, she imagines the graceful curve of dark wood, the smooth planes of boards, the spicy scent of a rich forest – she's seen such a thing in the market before – and nods. “It would do to bring a little beauty to this place,” she says.

There's one more revelation to be had out back: a garden.

At the base of a small, rocky outcropping, hardly big enough to be called a hill, but steep enough to be hidden from view, a few narrow terraces have been hewn from the stone. For all that the sections are thin, they are deep. Beru laughs in delight when she spots it, rolling up her sleeves, and plunging her hand into the sand.

“There's _soil_ ,” she says. “Beneath the sand. Buried, but not blown away.” The woman pinches her skirts higher, and drops into a crouch, stretching forth her hands to feel along the rough stone, searching. “Ah!” she exclaims. “Drainage. _Ikkalli_ , I may not the sabbac player Owen thinks he is, but I think you've just drawn an Idiot's Array. Do you know anything about gardening?”

Padme's grin grows a little tense as she considers. She'd had a few small houseplants on Coruscant, but they more often than not died in tragic neglect as she ran from system to system dealing with various diplomatic incidents. As a child, her mother had kept a small plot separate from her own elaborate flower beds for Padme, and her sister to tend as they chose, but there again, her abdication was felt. The few hardy grasses which survived the whims of her and Sola’s interest were largely thereafter cared for by her mother, and mostly meant for beauty, not purpose.

Beru can read her dismay, and she leans in to confess her own secrets.

“Neither do I,” she whispers. “Owen's the farmer in the family, and though he could sing ballads about every kind of water a body could cadge, harvest, or steal, I don't think he knows a pepper from a profogg.”

This does coax a sly smile from her companion, and Padme shakes off her dismay. Her sleeves are long, to protect from the blazing suns, but in the shadow of the hollowed out garden, she rolls them up.

“Let's dig them out,” she suggests. “Perhaps there's an equally ancient instruction manual buried in the dirt.”

Surprisingly, it's Obi-Wan who proves the most useful in this venture.

He finds them later, just as the suns begin to look drowsy. Padme, her face streaked with dirt, her hands dusty, and her nails crusted with black soil can't hold back a wide grin as she sees him approach. For a minute, she exists entirely in this single moment. There's the sweat of honest labor slipping between her shoulders, the lightheaded satisfaction of exertion, and the giddy tumble of excitement rolling in her gut as she grabs his hand, and pulls him over to unveil their discovery.

And he very nearly smiles back. Then his foot catches on a rock, and his focus is restored, the spell dissolving into the bruising sky. Still, he can't control the tendril of curiosity that curls in the arch of his brow, lifting it higher.

“What's this?” he asks.

Padme casts one more glance of shared delight with her sister-in-law, before stepping to the side to give Obi-Wan a direct view of the construct. The basins have been dug out, the rich, old soil being carefully set aside, and covered by Beru's apron while they replaced the gravel at the bottom. After clearing and cleaning the old metal tubing, and chiseling out the lower ports of hardened clay and calcified minerals, the dirt had been replaced, and the stone casements scrubbed with a stiff bristled shoe-brush Beru had donated, until they glinted white sandstone against the yellow dunes.

“And look,” Padme says, adding wonder on wonder. From her pocket, she draws out a small handful of dry seeds.

“Although, we don't know whether or not there's any life left in them,” Beru conceeds.

Without a word, Obi-Wan cups his one hand beneath Padme's own, then covers them both with his other. He closes his eyes, and seems to listen. Padme holds her breath. A moment later, he releases her, and steps back.

“There is,” he says.

* * *

Later, after Beru and Owen have left with many promises to return as soon as possible, with many generous donations of bread, and bantha milk – and in Beru's case, a recipe or two for the cunning application of such – Padme watches Obi-Wan mutter over the sowing of a few prime seeds from their collection. Luke sits contentedly on her lap, smiling and flailing his arms as he watches the Jedi putter. It's his latest trick, and one Padme knows she'll never tire of. His smile, while toothless and provoked by the slightest things, is precious. It lifts her in a way she hasn't known before, as though she's a fish, and some big hook has pierced her lungs and left her hanging suspended, both breathless and weightless in the air. There's some pain, when she sees Anakin's eyes staring out at her, but the joyous face is entirely her son's. Beru said he'd smiled early. Obi-Wan said he smiled bright.

Leia had yet to smile at all.

She catches a tiny fist in her hand, and bounces her boy along as she directs his movements to alight on Obi-Wan, and each tiny cup he's filled with damp earth.

“What's he doing? What's he doing?” she asks. Luke has no idea, but he smiles and watches anyway. “Do you know what seeds those are?”

“Beans,” Obi-Wan replies, distractedly. “A few peppers. And this one,” he continues, picking out a large, white specimen, “Is not of this world.” And he grins at her, a bit of the old flirt in his eyes.

“Oh, isn't it?” she prompts. “What is it then, Master Kenobi?”

“What do you think?”

He holds it out in the flat of his palm for her to examine. She reaches forward, Luke's hand still in hers, and runs his pudgy fingers over top of it. “It's smooth,” she coos. “Isn't it, Luke? Is that a lovely seed?”

The baby seems to agree, as he closes clumsy fingers around it, flailing in delight before the bean is rescued by its shepherd.

“It is lovely,” the Jedi avers. “It's a _mandrangea_ bean.”

“Can you eat it?”

“Indeed,” he says. “It's thought to have originated on Baraan-Fa, but now grows everywhere from here, to Fest. Developing worlds especially. It's one of those charming food sources that are cheap to produce, nutrient rich, and particularly difficult to kill.” He pauses for a moment, turning the seed over in his hand. “The blossoms are also uniquely fragrant,” he adds.

“I'm sorry I'm not more help, Obi-Wan,” she says, after a time. He's dropped back into a studious calm, hunched at the table, measuring out precise amounts of water, and carefully trickling it over a layer of locally sourced bantha poodoo. “Unfortunately, I've spent more time with bureaucrats than farmers.”

Obi-Wan nods, and casts her a look of soft indulgence, tolerating her self-deprecation but not at all believing it. He's silent, but then, places the water vessel down, and pauses as though inclined to speak again. So she waits.

“It was a near miss for me,” he says, and just as quickly, he gathers up a few seeds and begins depositing them in the pots. His focus carefully directed away from her face, he continues his confession. “And perhaps a foolish transgression of the Force's will, now that I think of it.”

“What do you mean?”

He wipes his hands on a nearby rag, and turns to the counter behind him to retrieve a few cloths stiffened with wax. He'd prepared these earlier, fashioning them from a variety of odds and ends left by the Lars' to seal off the delicate seeds from any light.

“As a child,” he begins, sorting the coverings carefully. “if an initiate is not chosen to be apprenticed by thirteen, he's placed elsewhere. I was assigned to the Agri-Corps. An offshoot of the Order designed to assist with agriculture production, and development.”

“But you _were_ chosen.”

“I was not.” He presses a canvas over the first pot, sealing the edges carefully, and carefully looking away.

“Well, it can't be as simple as that, can it, Luke?” She says, conferring with her son. “You're here, aren't you?”

“Master Yoda heavily _encouraged_ my master to take me on. Against his better judgment. But I could not be swayed. I knew better. I _knew_ I was destined to become a Jedi Knight.” There's force in the words, as Obi-Wan pushes them out into the gentle light of evening. He means more than he can say, and it all comes out in polished niceties, designed to defer insult, but deliver subtle condemnation all the same.

She doesn't know where the hurt lies, exactly, or who is being judged. “Is that where you learned about plants, then?” she tries.

And she supposes he thinks he smiles back in a way that he intends to be reassuring, but in the low light of the front room she sees the hollows of his cheeks fill, and the dark twist his mouth into a grimace.

“No,” he says. “Master Jinn loved all things green, and growing, and as a padawan, I remember our quarters were always full of his horticultural strays. Qui-Gon was strong in the Living Force. He was attuned to its guidance, and its insight in a way that few are privileged to be.” Padme's not privileged to any of it, and Anakin had something of a black thumb, but there's envy in Obi-Wan's voice. And dismay. “My master was a great Jedi,” he says, the implication lying heavy in the dry air. _  
_

She breathes deeply, tucking Luke more firmly against her hip. “Anakin used to say the same of his,” she counters. There's mercy in her words, but an equally compelling certainty of failure in his silence. It cannot stand, and Padmé grasps at something, _anything,_ to counter this revelation he thinks he's had. “He used to say you were the perfect Jedi,” she says. “That if anyone had been born to be a Master, it was you. He looked up to you. He wanted to be you. Be perfect _for_ you. Prove he was capable, and worthy of _you -”_

He drops the rag, and the tray of perfectly arrayed seedlings to the table, shocking Luke into stillness, and Padme into silence. “And in that too, I failed him,” he says. “I could never be equal to him. To his training, or his strength. He should never have been forced –” But he stops, and collects himself. He lifts the cloth, and the little pots are prodded gently back into order on the tray, before he sets it into one of the cut in shelves on the back wall. “If it was in my image he sought to mold himself, then it is no wonder he Fell, with nothing but a pale shadow as his guide. Nothing but the shallow impression of another's greatness.”

She stands, her spine stiff with the regal fury. The velocity of her ascendance knocks one of the clay vessels holding the unused dirt to the floor where it shatters against the stone. Luke kicks at her thigh, but she's too angry to feel it as anything other than a motivating pulse of violence, and startled, Obi-Wan finally, finally looks up.

“Anakin's failures are his own,” she says. “And so are Qui-Gon Jinn's. You don't need to compound your own with guilt for choices that were theirs, or cling to hurts that were never your responsibility to bear.”

A keening wail breaks the stillness of the moment, and her breath returns in a fevered convulsion. Obi-Wan says nothing. Her feet slap against the hard floor, as she turns her back, and reaches for her daughter writhing in her crib against the opposite wall. She sits in sullen silence for a time, feeding Leia, and rocking Luke in his cradle. Her jaw aches from holding back the press of anger that claws up her throat and begs to be shouted, and she keeps her gaze focused on her perfect children. From the corner of her eye, she can see Obi-Wan sweep up the spilled earth, and collect the pieces of the shattered pot.

“Don't throw that away,” she instructs. Her hair, mussed from a day's work, and curling in the remnant humidity of her sweat drifts in front of her face. He cannot read her, but he freezes obediently nonetheless. “It was a gift.”

Silently, he places the shards alongside the seed tray, and finishes brushing off the countertop. He hesitates, but she thinks he must realize that in the vastness of the desert, there's really nowhere he can go, so eventually, he clears his throat, intent on brokering a peace.

“The seeds need to germinate,” he says. “Maybe ten or so days in the tray. They don't need the sun, but they do need heat...”

She says nothing. Leia squirms in her arms, suckling and real in a way that Padme knows is so much more important and precious than Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He steps forward, then back, uncertain.

“I've set the pepper seeds aside, for now. I thought we might ensure our success with the bean sprouts first.”

She whispers her love to Leia. He pulls his cloak closer to him, the fabric warping, twisting like it means to wring him out. He sighs.

“Good night, Obi-Wan,” she says.

He hears her dismissal, and dutifully disappears.

* * *

She finds him early the next morning – although not early enough to beat the suns. The twins do not sleep through the night, and last night, Padme doesn't think she slept at all, guilt pricking at her, and sorrow curling up like a grub in her chest. Eventually, they combined to drive her from her hard pallet, in search of the Jedi.

The stove was hot, stoked early for breakfast – she finds some polta apparently left for her still steaming in a bowl, cacta nectar, and a glass of cool, blue milk on the side. It's far too small a room with too many thrusting counters, and corners to comfortably quarter a grown man. There's nowhere she could lie at full length, let alone Obi-Wan, and the flat, stone floor was meant to repel heat, not retain it. Anakin mentioned his master's tendency to run cool, and his repeated dissatisfaction with certain aspects of space travel that rendered ships notoriously cold. It was the rare subject on which he and Obi-Wan found perfect accord. So she reasons he must have curled up as best he could, close to the stove where necessity granted it a wider berth than other structural features, tending it, and warming himself in the dark. And at the dawn, he slipped out.

The garden looks better in the morning – optimistic in the way which tidiness brings. Obi-Wan is tidy, too, somehow managing the the dignified lines and trim edges of uniform despite his accommodations. Padme makes a careful study of approaching him with the right degree of confidence, and deference. She holds the bowl of cereal in her hands, chewing thoughtfully, as she waits for him to acknowledge her presence. Though she'd worried the sands might ruin her meal, the winds are calm this morning, as though in collusion with her intentions.

He turns to her immediately, and smiles.

“Thank you for breakfast,” she says.

“Not at all,” he replies.

Padme swallows, her fingers tense around the utensil in her hand. She remembers this. She remembers how notoriously difficult Obi-Wan is to debate with. An apology is _always_ accepted, but a discussion never is. There's no way to continue this conversation except with force. It used to frustrate Anakin to no end.

_  
“How am I supposed to fight with someone who refuses to engage?” he'd ask._

_Padme rather thought he shouldn't fight Obi-Wan at all, but reason, too, was ineffective, according to Anakin. And negotiating was utterly futile._

_“If he doesn't want to talk about something, he just **won't** ,” he'd said. _

_Padme smiles to think of how she'd teased him then that he was only angry he didn't have the monopoly on obstinacy he so desired. Anakin laughed._

_“There isn't a wall Obi-Wan's met that hasn't given in before he has,” her husband insisted._

  
But Tatooine is vast and open. There are no walls, and Padme doesn't have the patience for any more secrets, nor the stomach for any more sorrow.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “About last night.”

“Oh,” he says, looking up sharply as though surprised she's still there. “Don't be. We're all stressed.”

“But I shouldn't take it out on you.”

“Hm,” he says. He nods, too, but keeps his eyes on the basins, twisting the little knobs that protrude from the metal irrigation tubes this way and that. “It's alright.”

She sets her bowl on a ledge, the fired clay clinking dully against the stone.

“I'm sorry anyway.”

Obi-Wan straightens up, and turns to her. His mouth is fixed in a smile that must be modeled upon the very essence of comfort, his eyes crinkled, and brow raised in complete guilelessness.

“Believe me, Padme,” he says, hands outstretched upon her shoulders, and looking eye to eye. “There's nothing to forgive.”

She stares at him for a heartbeat, measuring not his sincerity because that has never been in doubt, but the strength and structure of his defenses. A weakness has been left exposed.

A half step brings her closer, the bend of her stride dropping her beneath the brace of his arms, and then she's against his chest, her arms beneath the shell of his cloak, and folding around his back.

He's warmer than she'd expected. Softer, and safer, too. She can feel the dense wall of muscle tense across his spine, and his ribs splay out beneath each of her fingers like they mean to reach back, but his arms don't move from where they've fallen awkwardly to the side. She squeezes. Hard. Harder than she'd embrace anyone, except perhaps her mother, hoping that he might feel her admiration, her gratitude. Her love. Hoping that he might feel _anything_ , because she is certain that she has never felt so much in her whole life as she has in these past few weeks. Pain. Grief. Anger. Utter, gut-wrenching, terrible, emptying _loss._ Fear. Hope. Disbelief. Desperation. Determination. And so, so much _love._ She is overwhelmed with it. It bubbles up like water between her toes, licking at her ankles, leaping at her knees, pulling her down as it surges against her hips, buoying her up as it rolls beneath her shoulders, drowning her as it floods over her head, and spills down her cheeks in salty rivulets.

He does nothing.

He doesn't move, he doesn't breathe. She feels the air leave his lungs beneath the strangulation of her hold, but no more rushes in to replace it.

She twists her head up to look at him, the worn fabric of his tabards brushing her tears away. He's so still she can see his heartbeat jump against the delicate tendons of his neck, and she pulls back to catch his eyes. He's not expecting it, and when she meets his gaze it takes him a fumbling second to reapply that easy, empty smile. He slips his hands into the crooks of her elbows, and pulls back.

“Everything will turn out fine, Padme,” he says. “You'll be safe. I promise.”

There's doubt, and confusion in her expression, but neither are touched by his vow. Obi-Wan turns back to the terraced beds, and the still sleeping seeds, and though he hadn't leaned into her embrace, he is slow to let it go. His hand, as light as the wind, drifts down her forearm to her fingertips, grasping them lightly to turn her to the plot. “Let me show you how these grow,” he says.

* * *

There are whole hours that go by where Padme doesn't think of Anakin at all. There's so much to do on their little farm. At first, Obi-Wan rises well ahead of her, but she quickly learns that anything that needs to be done must be done before the suns peak. After that, the sand itself reflects their twinned wrath enough to scald exposed skin, and blind eyes.

She and Obi-Wan spend their mornings in companionable silence, for the most part. Initially, Padme tries to break the quiet, but every topic she broaches always leads back to Anakin no matter how innocuous. She thinks it fair, because there's really nothing between herself and this Jedi master except his padawan. And all she can think of is him. But this is too painful to bear, so they fall into silences that are definitely preferable, and perhaps not even wholly unenjoyable. They smirk at each other when she stumbles in the unfamiliar terrain. She rolls her eyes at him when Leia's cries call her back to the house, and he shakes his head fondly before going in to soothe her. Their breath quickens in unison as they shovel, their spades hissing in contrapuntal harmony as they lift away the sand from the collapsed cellar. Owen thought it likely lead to the access port for the old vape unit, and Obi-Wan decides he ought to see how much, if any of it could be salvaged.

“The dry heat of the sand might have worked in our favor,” he says. “Hopefully, things have been preserved, instead of left to rot in whatever dampness from the old unit which remained when it was removed.”

He seems happiest to speak when he's teaching, and, from what she observed with Owen, most engaged when he's learning. So she lets him prattle on about wiring, and plastoid sealants, and what sort of unit they can expect to get for the few credits they have. His voice is soothing. It sounds of things familiar, and longed for, and maybe it's good for him. She wishes he would talk all day, even if she doesn't always hear him, and even though he doesn't really say anything. He makes sounds, and he takes up space – a little, as little as possible, but the house is so small she can still feel the heat of his body. And still...there's something about him that's profoundly absent.

Their time together is almost peaceful – except that she feels like she's all alone. Weeks go by in this claustrophobic isolation where everything is both too close, and far away all at once. She longs for a meal prepared by someone who isn't concerned with how much water will have to be spared for dishes. She yearns for the press of a crowd, for a fleeting moment of coincidence with a stranger. Her mind hungers for challenge, and purpose. Her tongue thirsts for a meaningful conversation. Her body aches for touch. She's terrified that this is eternity. She wants to know someone's with her. But when she opens her mouth to speak, she sees Obi-Wan's shoulders tense, and his eyes tighten in apprehension, and she's reminded once more of Anakin.

_If he doesn't want to talk about something, he just won't._

* * *

One day, six weeks – or possibly more – after they'd planted the sprouts into the carefully irrigated soil of the stone garden, Beru stops by. After a hushed but tense debate between the couple, and a token protest on the Jedi's part, coupled with another abject apology, Obi-Wan and Owen set off in the speeder for the Oasis.

“There's no two ways about it,” Beru says, bustling through the _bochu_ with yet more provisions, “You two need a vaporator, and that's that.”

Until now, she, the twins, and Obi-Wan had been carefully rationing a tank of water provided by Owen's dedicated labor, but it was neither reasonable, nor fair to continue the practice.

Purchasing the unit had been Owen's idea. Going shopping for it with _that karking koochoo_ was Beru's.

“I don't disagree,” Padme says. “I just wish there were some way to compensate you for it. It can't be cheap, and I know –”

Beru clucks her tongue. “You know nothing,” she teases. “Owen's still sore about that sabacc game. Who knows what kind of Jawa dross he'll push on Obi-Wan in revenge. I hope your friend is a skilled negotiator.”

This is the first thing since the twins were born that manages to draw a laugh from Padme, and it comes out stark and startled in the dryness of the house before she collects herself and bites it back behind her teeth. Beru's eyes are wide, but her mouth stretches into a pleased grin even as Padme fusses with some pallies and blushes.

“I've missed the joke, but I'm glad to see you laugh, _ikkalli_.”

Padme's lips stay firmly shut, but there's a glimmer of light curling in the corner of her mouth as she shrugs, and throws an impish look to Beru.

“Negotiations are his speciality,” she says, as though it's a reassurance heard a thousand times, though Beru has never seen it proved.

“We'll see,” she replies, skeptically. “ _U bedwana no yakku gee sando.”_

Padme and Beru fall into a comfortable rhythm after that, moving around each other to replace jars, or restock shelves. They give everything a thorough brushing, bristles scouring every crevice on the counters of sand, flour, and debris. After that, Padme takes Beru by the hand, and draws her out to the little garden. She'd watched Obi-Wan transfer the sprouts into the basins more than a month previous, and under his care the plants have thrived. Green laps at the edges of stone, and cascades over the rims. Narrow strips of wood and wire have been staked, and suspended lending the vines support as they race towards the sun. It's a tiny, secret oasis in the desert, and for all that she's mostly been a visitor rather than a gardener, it's the thing they've done she's most proud of.

“Oh, Padme,” Beru breathes. “This is marvelous.”

“And look,” Padme says, guiding Beru's attention to the plant most verdant and dense. The mandrangea bean plant has quite obviously seen the benefit of a preferential hand, and curls riotously up and down its pickets. It's the one Obi-Wan greets first, and salutes last. In joyful recognition, it has erupted into delicate white bloom, and where those have swollen under the blandishments of visiting kirik flies, there are bean pods. The plants live, and grow, and revel in the sun. There is promise in these vines.

An equal wonder blossoms on Beru's face, and the two women stand together, shoulders touching, hands clasped between them as they share in this miraculous revelation of life.

When Owen and Obi-Wan come back, the tension between them no longer fraught with anger, but gilded in Owen's palpable concern, Padme's brief respite is ended. They unload the vaporator in parts, Beru's soft hands become hard and practical again, and Padme regrets that she ever brought the Jedi here.

* * *

At night, when the twins have settled, and Obi-Wan has retreated to the fickle warmth of the _tullpa_ , Padme goes out to look at the stars.

She's never in her life seen so many. She's always lived in cities. Even the rare times she found herself unfortunately stranded in less than civilised conditions, she'd been rather preoccupied with staying alive, as opposed to star gazing. It's not the same when you look at them from a ship.

Here, the ground is firm beneath her feet. She breathes deeply, cold, dry air that hasn't been purified and recycled until it tastes of metal. She can turn her head any direction and see the cosmos in its entirety, uninterrupted by struts or bars. The black sky seems so perforated with light that it might fall apart if she could but reach out her hands and touch it. There's no blur of hyperdrive, no reality of planetfall, no war, no death, no absence. The sky is still, and she is the only thing that moves beneath it.

The whisper of footsteps warn her of someone's approach, but she doesn't startle. It's Obi-Wan, or their death, and she's too exhausted to guess. The heavy drape of bantha _wol_ falls over her shoulders, a hand smooths it across her back, and tucks the excess between her arm, and side to prevent it from slipping.

“It's much too cold to be outside,” he says.

She smiles, still watching the stars. “For as many places as I've been, I don't think I've ever properly appreciated how beautiful they are.”

He follows her gaze, glancing up, but even that gentle light seems to hurt. Obi-Wan winces, and turns back to examine her face.  
“Padme?”

“Anakin told me when he was little, he used to map the sky in the sand at night. Plotting courses.” She gives Obi-Wan a sly grin, laughing at the charming hubris of a nine year old. “He planned to see them all, and he wanted to make sure none were passed over in his travels as a Jedi Knight.”

“Lofty goals,” Obi-Wan observes.

“How far do you think he got?” she asks.

Obi-Wan hesitates. He looks over his shoulder at the house, at the cliffs behind them sheltering any number of unseen threats, at the open dunes to the north, and the distant lights of the Pika Oasis to the east, winking like a fallen star.

“I think you should come inside,” he says, instead, wrapping an arm around her shoulders in encouragement. But her feet are firmly planted, and she doesn't move.

“I miss him, Obi-Wan,” she says. “Don't you?”

He says nothing.

“I _miss_ him all the time. Every second, of every day. Even when I'm smiling, or laughing. Even when I'm shaking sand out of my shoes, or scrubbing the pots, or digging out the cellar – doing things that have nothing to do with him. I miss him even when I'm not thinking of him at all. I don't think I've taken a breath since Coruscant, and I think I'm suffocating out in the open desert. I can feel it. I can still feel _him._ Everywhere. He's every single place I look, but I'm out here alone, and there's nothing _here_. I'm standing right here, and the sand shifts, and the wind blows, and my skin burns, and it all eats right through me, but he's not here. I'm not here. _Nothing's_ here.”

She turns to him, willing him to speak, begging for him to prove her wrong, to cut her off, and calm her. To grab her and shake her until she falls apart, her limbs rattling empty to the ground, her ribcage cracking open, and her hollow chest filling with sand, her lungs burning with the heat of the suns until the carrion waste of her body dissolves into dust, and then, finally, disappears into the blissful, oblivious Nothing.

But he does nothing.  
  
“... _You're_ not even here, are you?”

He stands there, stupidly, with his arms at his side, his eyes on the ground, and his mouth so thin and pale it might be another old scar. And in that moment, the only thing she feels at all is rage.

“I hate you,” she whispers. And then she screams it, pushing him, throwing the full weight of her body against him, until he stumbles back, and back, and back. “I hate you!”

He holds out his hands, grabbing at her, but she twists away. His mouth opens, but Padme doesn't want to hear anything he has to say. In the moment between thought, and speech, she pulls back her arm and slaps him.

She can feel his jawbone beneath her hand, as sharply as though no skin covers it. She can feel his teeth, feel the tremor resonate through the bones of her fingers as they slam together on the follow through. His shock leaps up, wide-eyed and fearful between them. She feels sick.

Before he can say anything, before he can rationalise, or apologise, or, star's forbid, walk away, she reaches for him again, her hands tangling together in the loose folds of his tunic, pulling him close, and kissing him. He doesn't fight her. He doesn't lean in, and when she drops away, she doesn't feel any less ill than she had before.

She staggers a few paces away from the Jedi, her shoulders hunched, and her face turned away. She stares into the abyss of the Jundland Wastes, and tries to breath the sharp awareness of cold air in through her nose.

Obi-Wan gives her a moment to recover, taking one for himself, before he whispers his regrets to the shuddering curve of her back.

“Excuse me, my lady,” he murmurs. “I'm sure you've been much desiring my absence.”

She waits for his footsteps to fade, before lifting her eyes to watch as the graceful lines of his figure disappear like a shade into the night.

It's a long time before she moves to follow, but when air begins to prick, and she can hear the wind come howling through the cliffs, weeping and moaning out its grief, she steals back to the house. The twins are still, inexplicably, asleep. And when she's certain Obi-Wan has joined them, she crosses through the _tullpa,_ steps over his form by the stove, closes herself in the fresher, and retches bile.

* * *

In the morning, he is gone. She rises late, exhausted, and still tasting the sour twist of shame. The suns have not loaned her any more clarity than the stars, but she hates the thought of letting her actions settle between them as one more unacknowledged ghost. Leia stirs against Luke in their cradle, frowning against the weight of sleep, but not yet an equal combatant she falls back beneath its thrall. Padme stands in the thrall of her daughter. The churning knot of anger and disgust is easier to drown beneath the enchanted patter of her heart. She slips on her boots, and palms the key to the front entrance, intent on at last, having a conversation with a Force-blessed, flesh-formed wall.

Her eyes take a moment to adjust to the light of the day, but once they have, they're met with an unfamiliar landscape. A sandstorm in the night.

The dunes, which had become so familiar from weeks of unavoidable intimacy have been reformed in an instant. There's a hill over there that hadn't been, and surely that dip between the hut and the skeleton of the vaporator unit had not been so deep before. At least the structure remains upright – it was yet to be fully restored, though Obi-Wan was confident in his ability to do so – but to have it damaged or buried now would have been devastating. Hopefully, his work has not been compromised too badly overnight.

And yet, as Padme clambers over the sand, there's no sign the Jedi has been out to inspect it. There are no footprints, no paths freshly cut. Sand clings to grating with no indication that any hand has attempted to clear it.

On the near side of the house, the cellar door sits several feet lower than the rise she stands on, the canopy of stone above it preventing its complete submersion. But the shovels which stood by it have vanished.

She makes a circuit of the perimeter, searching out familiar markers, and noting damage, but they'd not spent enough time here for any great loss, so she's relieved to find that there's little missing, except for Obi-Wan Kenobi...and his garden.

She approaches it from the north, and at first, she thinks she's missed it. From behind the overhang it cleaves to it's easy to pass by without even knowing it. She's nearly back to the hut before she realises this isn't the case, and she doubles back, moving towards it head on, and still she's nearly upon it before she sees it, practically invisible beneath the waves of sand.

The garden is gone. The green leaves, and clinging vines have vanished, and nothing remains but that smooth, white stone, and a few stubborn lines of terrace pushing back through the sand. And Obi-Wan is not here, either.

She sinks to her knees, the sand beneath them yielding in apology, but not nearly so contrite as to make up for this betrayal. She thrusts her fingers deep into the grains, like knives, squeezing it, her fists curling tight as it escapes her grasp with the cunning guile of Ekkreth.

And she thinks of Anakin.

Her tears come hot, tracing lines of fire over her sunburnt cheeks. The bridge of her nose is peeling, and her forehead feels fever hot. She'd scream, except that no one would hear, and in defiance of her loneliness, she screams anyway. She's been deceived. She's been abandoned. She's been betrayed. She flings the sand from her hands, throwing it up to the sky, whipping it against the devoured garden. She throws more, and more, wanting to bury it completely, wanting to forget it, wanting to be the one who abdicates, instead of having yet one more thing usurped from her.

She lifts handful after handful of sand, all of it flowing impotently down the side of the barrow, until the fingers of her left hand glance against something velvet smooth, and cool.

A _mandrangea_ pod.

It sits quiet in her palm, a little bruised, but still firm. Still very much alive, and full of promise. Padme gasps. Her tears catch on the frayed cords of her throat, her voice guttering like the flames in the bread oven at night. She clutches the pod in her hand, pressing it to her chest, and begins to swipe great swathes of sand side to side, searching for more.

The suns rise overhead until they tire, and begin to turn back, and by the time Luke and Leia shake off the heavy suggestion of rest their wayward master had pressed on them, Padme's hands are blistered, and her skirt is full of seeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on Translations:
> 
> "U bedwana no yakku gee sando"... lit. "you can't buy water with sand," and similar in meaning to "you can't get something for nothing."


	3. beskar'gam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does it bother me that twice now I've forgotten to add the accent to Padme's name, and can't just do a single search and replace for it? Yes.

_Then to the frigid waters clear as glass  
_ _She leapt, and there she hunted the great whale  
_ _And found him tangled in the long sea grass.  
_ _For freeing him, he granted her the scale.  
_

 _-_ The Forlorn Queen, Myth of the Ancient Naboo

* * *

Beru is alone when she comes to the hut on the edge of the Wastes. Owen reacted to the news of Obi-Wan's abandonment with his typical indignation, and so Padme does not take it personally when he first makes excuses, and then openly refuses to set foot on her property as some form of retaliation against the man he vehemently denies holding any affection for. This has the unfortunate consequence of leaving the vaporator only partially assembled, and wholly nonfunctional, but Beru uses this as a reason to make regular visits to Padme, and her children. She makes the trip once a month, staying for a day or so to restock the pantry, assist with the more complicated maintenance tasks, and help with the children. It's on the fourth such visit that Padme asks her for a blaster.

Luke squeals in delight as his aunt presses a sliver of pallie into his hand, flinging it across the room, and giggling madly at the spectacle. Leia eyes her aunt with a skepticism too practiced for one so young, and opens her mouth to be fed the fruit directly.

“She's a very serious little girl,” Beru notes, as Leia chews thoughtfully, keeping her eyes on Beru's face as though waiting for the revelation of a cunning betrayal.

Padme nods, and chews on her lip while she bends to retrieve Luke's discarded snack. She hands it back to him with great ceremony, and Luke coos in solemn gratitude before breaking out into laughter when it's sent flying again. His mother frets.

“She hasn't laughed, yet,” she confesses. “Is that normal?”

Beru looks up. Her expression is carefully bland, with neither surprise nor dismay scrawled across it, but her very neutrality makes Padme's gut clench.

“Not at all?”

“No.”

“But she's smiled, surely.”

Noting her aunt's distraction, Leia hauls herself up the woman's legs, and slaps at her thigh, demanding attention, and another slice of fruit.

“Not once,” says Padme.

Beru dutifully restores her focus to its rightful audience, and dangles the fruit before the girl.

“Would you smile for your auntie, _upana-kassu_?” Leia frowns, and stretches for the fruit. “Smile!” But the child refuses, and receives the fruit regardless.

Beru sighs. “What do you need a blaster for, anyway?”

Padme hesitates, unsure which danger is more presently in need of address.

“Security,” she says. “I have to be able to defend us if the need arises, and without – I need to be prepared.”

“Do you even know how to handle a weapon?” Beru asks. “I thought you were a senator.”

“Negotiations in the Core could often be...aggressive,” she asserts.

Beru looks thoughtful. “I'll have Owen come by and check your perimeter lines,” she says. “Make sure that there's been no breach. The Tuskens can be trusted to be opportunistic, and you, fortunately, have little of value.”

“I want –“

“– And he'll find you a weapon,” she says.

They speak no more of Leia.

* * *

Much to his dismay, Owen's out at the hut the next week.

“First thing you gotta know is this is a slugthrower,” he grumbles, flipping the rifle to lie across his palms. He points to a ridge along the side of the rifle behind the rear sight. “This is where you load it.” He flips a lever. “Open.” The metal slides away and a deep groove appears. He pushes a small box forward in his palm. “This is the magazine,” he says. “You got fifteen shots. You slide it in –” The magazine clicks into place. “Load the chamber –” He pulls hard on the finger lever, cocking it down then slamming it back up. “And you're good to go.”

He passes the cycler rifle over to her. It's nearly as tall as she is, and heavier than any blaster she's carried. There was no way this was something that could be hidden on her person, or drawn in secret.

“I was expecting something a bit more practical,” she says.

Owen shrugs, then moves to stand behind her. He places his hand over hers where its wrapped around the base of the barrel, and moves her other to lie flat along the trigger guard, drawing the rifle up, and resting it between her shoulder and neck.

“You want it to sit here,” he says, poking her. “In the squishy bits. You don't want it against your collarbone, or right against your arm or you're gonna end up in a lot more poodoo than your target. Got it?”

“Got it,” she says, lowering her head, and peering down the sights. The weapon is equipped with a powerful scope, and she can see clear across the landscape, almost beyond the horizon. “Are you sure this is the best option?” she asks. “I'd imagined something a bit more subtle. Something that I could hide.”

“You don't wanna be hiding anything out here,” he says. “Makes people think you got something worth taking. Best offense is a good offense. With this, you'll be able to pick anyone off before they get near enough to become a threat. You carry this, and people will know you're ready to kill.”

The barrel dips, as she whips her head to lock eyes with her brother-in-law. His gaze is steady, and serious. “There's no setting for stun, and slugs are a lot deadlier than any common _blastoh."_

"They're cruel," she says.

"You know how to shoot at range?”

Padme hesitates. Her hands twist over the cool metal of the rifle, going slick with sweat. She grits her teeth, and shakes her head.

“Can you show me?”

* * *

He takes her out to Beggar's Canyon. The speeder doesn't have a roof, and the wind cards through her hair with violent fingers. She clutches the rifle in her lap, and tries to push the long, brown tendrils behind her ears. Owen keeps one hand on the steering yoke, the other drapes over the side of vehicle. He grins in the open space, and presses the accelerator down without acknowledging any type of speed limit. It's too loud for conversation, so Padme focuses on the sleek barrel of the weapon, the heat of the suns, and the vanishing horizon.

They pass through Mos Espa, and Owen slows briefly to point out a shop that deals in slugs, and weapon repair.

“These things have a tendency to jam,” he says. “But with the Tusken moddies I added, that's less likely to happen. More likely, you'll run outta shells before you actually hit anything.”

He watches her as she takes the city streets in. They're winding, narrow, and completely ungoverned. The roads are largely unpaved, formed instead from hard packed sand. Shallow-domed buildings rise from the ground, glinting like desert beetles in the sun. None of them are more than a few stories high, the sands too fickle to support any structures more ambitious. They pass through the shipyards, the buildings giving way to massive pits bound by rings of low service ports, and then rising on her left in defiance of its uncertain footing, is the stadium.

“Impressive, ain't it?” Owen asks.

“Yes,” she murmurs in a low voice her companion takes for astonishment.

“It's all Hutt money,” he says. Then, taking pity, he adds, “I know you're from the Core, but these streets can be a bit of a trick to figure out. Want me to draw you a map in case you forget?”

“It's alright,” she says, as the stadium falls away behind them. “I won't forget Mos Espa.”

He nods, taking her assurance at face value, the way he does everything, and within minutes, they arrive at the entrance of the canyon. The earth splits, the ground before them falling away, and cliffs reach up, and up, and up to block out the suns. Shade slides over the gleaming metal of their vessel, the red and orange plates turning blue and green in the dim light. Padme exhales in relief, her skin prickling into goosebumps, as though she's slipped silently beneath the surface of a cool mountain spring. The speeder drifts to a halt, and Owen leaps out, moving round the front and reaching out a hand to assist Padme. She grabs on, and clambers to her feet outside the vehicle, the butt of the rifle trailing through the sand. There's a skittering of stones from a crevice above, and the sound echoes through the darkened canyon. Padme gasps, and spins trying to discover the origin of the disturbance, as the noise rebounds from one rock wall, to another. Owen grins at her.

“This is where it gets fun,” he says. “Y'ever seen a womp rat?”

Padme has never in her life killed an animal - she’s rather disinclined to consider Geonosis, which she thinks an understandable omission. Owen takes her to the top of a narrow shelf, chiseled into the rock by centuries of wind, and flying grit. They lie down, side by side, bodies pressed against one another, sweat cooling in the shadow of the cliffs. Their post doesn't leave much room for maneuvering, and Owen is compelled to very nearly lie on top of Padme in order to arrange her arms, place her hands, and evaluate the field in her scope. Once she's been prodded into a satisfactory position, her companion begins muttering directions into her ear.

“You've got a little help from the macro-scope,” he says, “So you won't have to do much manual adjustment once you've settled on a general range. Can you see that rock across the way? The one that looks like a fat, little Hutt _wermo?_ ”

Padme twists the controls of the scope, slowly bringing into focus a long, curved formation that seems to fold over on itself in thick rolls. She smiles. “I see it.”

“Good. So that's about a hundred meter span.”

“Alright.”

“Now, about twenty feet above it, there's a hole with some dry brush hanging out of it.

“Got it.”

“That's a womp rat nest,” he says. “Any second, a nasty little face is gonna pop on out, and when you see it's buggy black eyes in your scope, you're gonna breathe out, and pull that trigger, okay?”

“...Okay.”

She waits. Owen shifts beside her, getting comfortable. Her breath calms, and her shoulders relax. As the minutes pass by, the struggle becomes in maintaining focus, and ignoring the cramp that's crawling up her neck, until, finally, the narrow jaw of a grey-furred rodent appears at the entrance of its home. Through the scope, she can see its whiskers twitch, and its nose scent the air. It's two long foreteeth jut out from the front of its snout, and the double-fanned ears flicker as the creature scouts for danger. It's not at all an attractive animal. It's actually rather frightening. But it is an animal. It's alive. It has a home, and it can make decisions, and it can feel pain, and her finger holds on the trigger.

In that moment of hesitation, a slight breeze ruffles the fur mane that runs over the rat's shoulders, and carries to it a new scent. Its eyes flicker in the direction of the danger, and Padme flinches when it seems to make eye contact with her down the sights. Her arms shift on the gravel, dislodging a small amount that trickles down the rock face. Faster than thought, the womp rat follows its instinct to flee, and in a moment is gone.

Owen groans beside her.

“You hesitated. You can't hesitate.”

Padme leans back, letting the rifle fall to the dirt, and rolling her shoulders. “I'm sorry,” she says.

But Owen's not to be consoled.

“You can't hesitate, Padme,” he says. “You hesitate, and the guy you're aiming at gets away. He gets closer, or worse, he gets the first shot. You hesitate, and you're dead. Luke's dead. Leia's dead. Don't hesitate.”

She glares at him, resenting his tone, and angry that he'd even dare give voice to the possibility of harm befalling her children. She'd die first. She very nearly already has. He doesn't have children, but if he did, he would never so callously mention their deaths.

“It was just a rat,” she grumbles.

“I didn't get you a rifle to pick off rats,” he says. “You told me you could kill.”

“I can.”

“Then prove it.”

And if looks could, she would have already. But instead, he holds her gaze in challenge, until she relents, dropping to her stomach, and replacing the rifle in the position Owen had so carefully guided it to before. He lowers himself beside her, and the silence that accompanies them is brittle and tight, until finally, the crack of a rifle shot breaks through the cold, impassive hollow of the canyon, and the body of the rat tumbles from the cliffs to the rocks below.

It's a short-lived victory, and Padme misses more rats than she hits. The rifle is heavy, the slugs require a deft touch, and accounting for distance takes more time and patience than she'd ever had in close skirmishes, but she finds her knowledge of hand-held blasters provides her with enough experience to make Owen's lessons come easily, and stick. They still run through the rest of the magazine, and two more boxes of cartridges before Owen is satisfied with her capability, but at the end he takes the rifle from her benumbed fingers, and shakes her hand, the grim line of his mouth, and the steadiness of his gaze speaking of his confidence more clearly than any words.

* * *

There are womp rats in the Jundlands, she finds. Owen doesn't believe her until she confronts him with the massive carcass of a black rat. It's bigger than the ones she shot at in Beggar's Canyon, and its ears are flatter, and flare out like wings, but its definitive proof of her claims.

“There's never been rats this far west,” he says, bouncing Leia on his knee, her hands grasping at the matted fur of the beast, but always just out of reach. “And I've never seen one like this. It's ears are all funny.”

Beru drops a ball of freshly kneaded _haroun_ dough into a ceramplast pot, and covers it beneath a rag. She gives the dead thing a cursory glance as she wipes her hands on her apron, and begins sweeping up the spare flour.

“Skin it, and cure it, and you've got enough meat there to make a bit of money at the Oasis,” she suggests.

“Really?” Padme asks. Luke writhes in her arms, gurgling and reaching for his aunt who remains proximal to the food. She places him on the ground, and with the single-mindedness of his father, he scoots across the floor in pursuit of a possible snack.

Beru nods at Padme, and obliges Luke with a bit of pika filched from the bowl of the fruit she'd set aside for dessert.

“Oh, sure,” she says. “Cream of womp rat is one of Owen's favorites, but they're such scrawny things that usually they're more trouble than they're worth. A big fellow like that one, though – they'd eat it up, at the Oasis.”

Owen pokes the rat, still suspicious, and skeptical. “Vermin,” he says.

“Besides,” Beru adds. “It's a good way to practice your shot.”

So after dinner, Owen finds himself once more harangued into assuming the role of assistant, but it's Beru who shoulders most of the teaching. He carts the body outside, and with some spare poles from the still incomplete vaporator, they manage to erect a crude trestle to hang it from. Using a simple knife, and brute strength, Beru demonstrates how to properly dress and butcher a carcass. The gore is buried, and the remaining meat is placed on the gambrel stick which they move to the cool dryness of the cleared out cellar.

A few weeks and several more Jundland rats later, Padme straps Luke to her front, and Leia to her back, and slings the rifle over her shoulder. Her hair she ties back beneath a wide strip of cloth, tucking, and folding the fabric until all the wild strands are caught up and contained beneath it. She borrows an eopie from the Lars' and makes the journey to the Pika Oasis.

This isn't her first time going. She'd been several times in the past months, exchanging the few bits of clothing, and jewelry she still had which were finely made, and of some value. A hair pin. A ring. The velvet skirts of a ceremonial gown she'd found stashed on her ship when they left Polis Massa. Little pieces of her old life that seemed important until she began to give them away, one by one. Food was more important than fashion. Medicine more helpful than fine clothes. Security more necessary than memory.

But this is the first time she comes with the products of her own labour. She brings the rats. She brings a skein of bantha _wol_ Beru had spun, and Padme had carefully bleached to purest white, and she brings a sackful of dried beans. Tatooine may be the domain of a trickster god, and Obi-Wan Kenobi may be a ghost, but the suns shone year round, and the Mother gave her many seasons for success.

After he'd left, she'd found a thin sheet of flimsi and scrawled out every step of Obi-Wan's efforts that she could recall. She noted the careful measuring of poodoo, the way he'd moistened the soil, the tenderness with which he'd pressed seeds to the earth, the ten days they'd germinated in the dark, the delicacy with which he'd placed them in the terraced rows. She talked to them as he had. She watered them as he had. They were the first thing she checked in the morning, and the last thing she secured at night. She had Owen build her a blind, to keep out the wind and sand, and though her vines were not quite as lush or vibrant as his had been, after two months she had a harvest. After two more, she had enough to share.

At the Oasis, she's greeted by leather-skinned women, too bent and old to be much help on farms, or as servants. She's well aware by now which are slaves, and which are free, and she tries not to barter too ferociously with those whose lives depend on her patronage. She'd come once with Beru, who hissed under her breath as _depurs_ stalked by in heavy boots, their hands twitching at their belts over the sleek controls to shock collars, and microchips. She knows them, too.

Her small collection of produce is a significant accomplishment for her, but it's not enough to secure her own stall, so she heads to Danner's Claim, hoping to sell her wares to a third party monger. While not a friend, Annileen Calwell is a reasonable woman, and the proprietor of the establishment. Padme reasons she might as well start with the biggest fish, before wasting her time with something smaller. She's in luck to find the woman interested.

The _wol_ is lovely, but too fine to sell to any but a few. The price Annileen offers is less than what Padme would like, so she keeps it.

“These beans, however,” Annileen murmurs, running them over her hands, “Are a nice treat, and your meat, of course, is of good value. Where did you find such large rats? These weren't domesticated, were they? Because I won't set precedent for eating anyone's pets.”

Padme shakes her head, patting Luke on the back as he cries against her chest.

“Certainly not,” she says. “They've been coming in from the Wastes.”

“Hm,” Annileen says, not wholly convinced. “Well, I'll give you a peggat for all of it.”

“You'll sell them for twice that,” Padme argues.

“A necessary profit,” says the woman. “We are a business after all, dear. You won't get a better price from any independent vendor.”

She knows that's true, but she resents it even as she hands over her wares, and accepts the tarnished coin. Annileen smiles like a _felix_ that got the cream as she hefts the sack of beans into her arms, and signals one of her men to collect the cured meat.

“By the way,” she adds as she turns away from Padme. “There's been a man following you since you changed eopies at Itzak Nightsun's. Over there.”

Padme whirls in the direction of Annileen's gesture in time to catch a flash of gold as her shadowy voyeur ducks behind one of the broad stone columns that stand at the entrance to the Claim.

Annileen makes her retreat into the depths of the shops, and Padme spares a small curse for _Owen Karking Lars_. Her rifle will be no use in these crowded halls. Instead, she reaches down, and withdraws a thin durasteel blade from her boot. She tucks it out of sight on the inside of her palm, lifts her chin, and checking her shoulders for any other would-be assailants, she strides towards the obstructing pillar. She lets the knife slip down between her fingers, and darts around the corner, hoping to surprise the observer with a subtle blade to the throat – a weak spot in nearly every form of vestment or armor.

But there's nobody there. The crowds swell around her, as indifferent and ignorant of her identity as ever.

She's slow to leave the Oasis, afraid of leading someone unseen back to her refuge, so she wanders the market, spending more of the peggat than she'd intended. There's a woman selling pallies – something she can never resist – and she buys a long swathe of tightly woven bantha _wol_ she means to fashion into some practical breeches for herself, and a few pieces of simple clothing for the ever growing twins. The first sun is nearly set before she packs up her eopie at Nightsun's, and heads home.

The twins, frustrated by a day spent away from the familiar cool floors of their hut, and nearly constantly bound to their mother, are fractious, and complain the whole way back. Padme's sore, and tired from the ride, her throat parched, and her lips cracked from the sweltering heat, and the repeated pleas for calm and quiet from the twins. The relief that she feels when the tiny farm at last comes into sight crests over her like the billowing tide, and is so overwhelming she nearly misses the flash of gold on the land behind her, as she casts one last look back the way she came.

Night has nearly fallen behind her, and at first she thinks its merely the distant lights of the Oasis sparking along the border between land and sky. But then, her eyes catch on movement, and the flash of gold she'd seen in town reappears, glinting across the sand, moving ever closer, flickering like the scales of a tiny fish beneath the ripples of a golden sunbeam.

Someone has followed her home.

The eopie groans in reluctance, as Padme drags it to the back of the hut, tethering it to a small hitching post sunk into the ground. Luke has, mercifully, fallen asleep, but Leia does her own impression of a mournful beast as Padme unwraps them both, and pushes them down into their crib.

“Shh,” she whispers, stroking the girl's belly, and rocking the cradle. “Please, baby, sleep. Sleep.” And she thinks longingly of Obi-Wan and the Force-borne sleep suggestions she'd previously resented.

Luke, obliging even in his slumber, rolls closer to his sister, his fat arm falling across her and nuzzling close. Reluctantly finding solace in his embrace, Leia's eyes flutter, though she fights to bestow one more displeased frown upon her mother before falling headlong into unconsciousness. Padme holds her breath. She listens. The house is still.

She crosses through the side _bochu,_ just beside the fresher and comes out near the cellar. The eopie trumpets to see her again, but she makes it no acknowledgment and it falls back to contemplating the small feed bin before it. The satchel she'd carted to the Oasis and back lies just outside the door. She reaches for it quickly, snatching her rifle from the ties and loops securing it, and keeping herself tucked close against the rough stone of the domed dwelling, she risks a glance around the house, looking east. It's too dark now to spot any tell-tale gold, but the scope of her weapon has night vision, and the cliffs of the Jundland Wastes are close.

She sprints into the louring overhang of the rocks, the broken stone thrusting up above her like ancient, ossified trees, and she weaves between the pillars, scrambling over low ledges, and pulling herself hand over hand onto a narrow ridge that looks out over the open plain below her. The hut, and her children, lie a few meters away – no further than the rat Owen had bid her shoot had cowered in its own warm den. She lies flat. She raises the rifle to her shoulder, and presses her cheek against the cool body, flicks off the safety, and looks down the sights.

The minutes pass. The darkness presses in on her. She can hear rats scurry behind her, their claws skittering over rock. A scurrier screams. The many legs of a leesbie caress her bare ankle, its trisected body rolling over the cuff of her pants, tumbling across her calf, but she does not move. She waits. Until finally, a spectre rises up from behind a dune, closer than she'd expected, and only visible in the dark as it moves to block out the barest reflection of light the stars cast upon the sand.

Her finger hovers over the trigger, and she takes deep, steadying breaths, fighting her maternal instinct as he draws nearer, and nearer to her home and her children. But she wants him close. She cannot miss this shot. Soon, he's past the perimeter lines, past the withered bones of the vaporator, and he's at the door. He reaches out to palm the entrance, when the eopie grunts, and startles him. She holds her breath. He lifts his head, the moonlight falling across the wide forehead, and sharp features in broad strokes. She can see the whites of his eyes through her scope, and with her finger on the trigger, she hesitates –

She knows that face.

Her head comes up, and air comes rushing back in, filling her lungs with such sharp shock that she gasps like she's drowning. The barrel of the rifle sways, and dips, skimming over a few loose pebbles that clatter away, telling tales in the night.

The intruder looks towards the cliffs, and his eyes find her. In the same moment she tucks her chin, aims, and pulls the trigger, the man moves, diving for cover behind an old water tank emptied weeks ago still waiting for Owen Lars to retrieve it. She shoots again, and again, and he comes closer to her. She misses, but she doesn't care as long as he finds her, and not her babies. After fifteen rounds, the rifle clicks through empty chambers. Padme curses.

The man is below her now, clambering up the rocks. He's close enough that she can hear the harsh rasp of his breath, and see the golden cuffs that encircle his forearms shimmer beneath the fall of his deep green mantle. She scrambles back, pulling her feet beneath her to kneel, bracing herself against the rock wall. Her rifle is heavy in her hands, and she brings it round to strike him as he climbs, thrusting down into his shoulder, his head, shearing close over bruised knuckles and drawing blood. But then, he catches it, one hand free, and bringing the other to grip the butt as he pushes off against the rock, gravity and the momentum of his body dragging her from her perch as she keeps her hold on the weapon.

She plummets over the edge, a sharp noise of pain breaking from her lips as her body is struck upon the jagged rows of rocks that rise like the spine of some great dragon from the desert floor. She rolls herself back to her feet, and puts all her strength behind tearing the rifle from the man's hands. When he lets go, the sudden lack of tension sends her to the ground again, and he's on top of her in an instant, his body flush against her length, using his weight to pin her, the rifle pressed between them. But her left hand is free, the thick base of the rifle giving her room, and she uses it to reach down into her boot, drawing the little knife into her palm.

He's speaking to her, but she doesn't hear, writhing beneath him fueled by the desperate, animal fear that takes over when cornered by a much larger predator who has their teeth to your neck. He releases his hold on her elbow, and raises one arm to her throat, the fingers scrambling up her chin and clamping down over her mouth.

“Sh, shh,” he says. “Now, stop that.”

She freezes, eyes wide, staring into this face she still dreams of at night.

“I don't want to hurt you,” he says. He lets go her jaw, and leans back just enough for her to draw a breath. She shifts, and he flinches, looking down to see her hand and the tiny blade it wields press against the sliver of black that peeks out where his gardbrace meets the breastplate. He raises his hands in concession, sitting back on his knees, and mutters, “Though the feeling may not be mutual.”

Keeping the knife in place, Padme slides out from beneath him, and rests on her haunches. Face to face, she examines him. His hair is longer than she'd seen before, and he has a moustache, but there's no denying who he is. She forces the twist of disgust from her mouth and unclenches her jaw just enough for speech.

“Traitor,” she hisses.

“I know,” he agrees. “I've been looking for survivors.” The contemptuous cast of her gaze seems to wound him more than the threat of her violence. He sags, his shoulders collapsing inward, and his head bowing, the weight of his guilt toppling him forward and dragging him into the dirt. “I'm so sorry,” he says.

With his brow in the sand, and his body bent prostrate before her in abject genuflection, he awaits her sentencing. But with the appanage of royalty, she is merciful, and stays her hand. The knife retreats, and she with it. He lifts his head to watch her, as she rises to her feet, and reaches out a small hand now calloused and bloody to help him. He reaches back, and borrows her strength to stand, her fingers wrapping around the yellow-gold vambrace of his forearm. “You were in the 212th,” she says. “What's your name?”

“CT-0577, Senator Amidala,” he states, as crisply as any shiny. “My friends call me Boil.”

She takes him back to the hut, careful to keep him ahead of her, and within sight. The door slides open at the touch of her palm, and he watches as she props the rifle just inside the frame as they move through into the cool interior of the house.

“It's not loaded,” she says, hoping to discourage the thoughts she still fears he harbors. But he shakes his head, dismissing her worry.

“It's just, that's a slugthrower,” he says. “It's not something I would have expected someone like you to be carrying. They're old tech, and completely uncivilized.”

“They're designed to kill,” she replies. “And there doesn't seem to be much call for civility these days.”

He nods, looking around the house, examining the lived-in domesticity of it. There are dishes in the sink, some dry polta grains lie scattered over the counter tops sticky with cacta juice, a few cuttings and sprouts are lined up on the shelves, and dried stalks of herbs hang upside down above the stove. A mandrangea plant bursts in wild coils over the table, and discarded clothes much too small for Padme betray her secret. Boil lifts the soft cloth of an infant's chiton in wonder.

“ _Ogir cuyir a adiik?_ ” he whispers to himself.

Her whole body tenses, preparing for another fight, preparing for another betrayal, but willing her heart to attempt more peaceful negotiations, first.

“What do you want?” she asks.

The reality of the miracle he holds sinks in, and he looks to her in alarm. “Senator, there were rumors of the General's survival but if I had known _this –_ ”  
  
“He isn't here,” she says. “If you came looking for blood, you're too late. Obi-Wan Kenobi is gone, and I won't help you hunt him.”

The clone's mouth falls slack, his murky eyes turn distant and glassy. All the air in his lungs, all the blood in his veins, every contraction of muscle and every fragment of thought seem to forget themselves and vanish into obscurity, leaving him suspended for a moment as the mindless, empty vessel he'd been created as. He staggers to his knees, a chair toppling in his wake, the child's garment still clutched in his hands. When he speaks, his voice is rough and thick, as though it is his first time, his throat clogged with the sorrow of birth, and his tongue unpracticed in the expression of hope.

“General Kenobi is alive?” he cries.

* * *

It's nice to have another set of hands around the house, Padme discovers. Boil is a dab hand at children, which should not surprise her as much as it does, but there's something about him that strikes her as aloof, and distant. She thinks, perhaps, its the remnants of an old habit, because when he's with the children he never hesitates in his affection, though there's a strange reverence in his care. He loves them both so easily, and so quickly, but Leia seems to hold some special thrall over him, and when he looks at her, it's like he's coming home. And after a couple months, Leia greets him like she completely agrees.

With the rats a regular catch, and yet another mouth to feed, Boil takes upon himself the risk of going into the Oasis to buy and sell supplies.

“After all, ma'am,” he reasons, “If I found you out here, who knows what else might come looking? Better to be safe.”

It's logical, and more than that, it's a relief. Padme's happy to spare herself the agony of two hot, miserable infants strapped to her chest for hours, and multiple uncomfortable eopie rides. Instead, she stays at the farm, tending the garden, checking the perimeter for signs of Tuskens or krayt, and doing her best with the impossible vaporator – though, on that, she can't be certain she makes any progress.

But Boil certainly finds success.

Each trip brings more and more luxuries to their lives. The hut's little pantry is soon bursting with dried goods, and eventually she has to start storing excess in the cellar. Sometimes, he brings back sackfuls of fresh fruit, or smoked bantha meat. Occasionally, he's gone for several nights, and reappears with bottles of alcohol – one of which she gifts to Owen for all his trouble – or, on one memorable occasion, he surprises her with pom juice.

“But...this is from Naboo,” she says, curiosity and confusion running lines across her brow. “This had to come from off world.”

He shrugs.

“One of the old ladies had it for sale,” he says.

“Which one?”

“Nulta,” he replies, and Padme's dismay spikes.

“You didn't buy from Nulta,” she protests. “She _always_ tries to overcharge.”

“It was nothing,” he assures her. “Most likely, she didn't know what she had. Can't imagine too many natives have tried a lot of Naboo fruit in their lives.”

She's not convinced, but she restrains herself from further speculation, until one day, the necessities he's bringing home are replaced with frivolous _gifts_.

She gets a some fresh linen. Luke gets a model ship. He brings Leia a doll.

“It's not really spoiling them when they're too young to remember it,” he says, when she tries to argue. “And I didn't have to spend any credits on it – I got it from some woman as payment for a quick job.”

Padme has some idea of what he's not saying – she's had some for a while – but she can't live with uncertainty anymore, not when it could mean danger, so she asks him straight out. “What kind of jobs?”

His glance is furtive, knowing she won't approve, but he's never disobeyed a direct order, and he can hear the steely command in her voice.

“Bounty hunting,” he says.

She blinks slowly, and turns her head aside. The old slithering lick of disappointment curls around his chest, and he feels her revulsion as if its his own, even if she doesn't voice it.

“It may not be pretty, but it pays well. It's kept us alive. I can't regret that.”

She curls her fingers around the ceramplast cup in her hands. It's filled with a heady brew of Beru's devising, although the recipe remains a mystery to Padme. With double the workforce, there's time to sit with the children, sip tea, and think. She finds the spice hits sweeter when its shared with company, and he’s been so good to them. After a moment, she reaches across the table, and lays her hand over his. “Neither can I,” she says, smiling. “And like I said: we've no use here for civility. I just want to make sure it's safe.”

“As safe as it can be,” he says. “I don't cross my employers, and I don't take any jobs that demand a kill. I've lost my taste for that.”

“And you? Are you safe?”

“I'm careful,” he says. “I've been shaking tails, and lying low for months, now. It's not good business for the Empire to have so many renegade soldiers, so I've had practice.”

“What do you mean?” she asks. Boil smiles as Leia gums one of the dolls cloth limbs. He moves to join her on the floor, too large for the space, but completely content as a companion at play. Luke is especially ticklish, and the babe burbles and squeals in delight as the clone gives his knees a little squeeze. When he answers Padme, he is frank. The caginess of minutes ago is gone, his mind more engaged with the blissful present than the troublesome past.

“After the orders came down, a lot of the men couldn't handle it,” he says. “Couldn't believe we'd been serving under traitors this whole time, as though we hadn't been there with our generals and commanders on the front lines. Seen them fight with us. Seen them die for us. It didn't make any sense.”

“It was a lie,” she says.

He nods, sparing her a single solemn glance while Leia clambers into his lap.

“Not all of us could see it,” he agrees. “And those that could...there were many _vode_ that could not live with it.”

“How did you escape?”

“ _Adla senaar, adla laar,_ ” he says. “There were rumors for years of a path to freedom, but in the end, I just ran.”

“'A path to freedom'?”

“I heard a _vod_ in the 501st talk about a chip, once. He said it's sliced into our heads, and tells us what to do,” he says. “And when we shot down the General, I believed him.”

“Do you think you'd kill him now?” she asks. “Your General. If you saw him?”

“It's better out here, away from it all. But I can still hear it whispering in my head. Telling me to hunt,” he admits. “And the orders still stand...I'm glad the General left before I found you.”

* * *

Boil lies out flat on the table, his breathing steady through the concentrated application of will, his eyes squeezed shut, and he listens to Beru sing. Her voice starts low, a gentle hum that seems to resonate in the very bones at the base of Padme's skull. As the _relkin_ cuts into the clone's head, the pitch rises leaping above the sting of pain and pressing it down again, circling back and repeating the phrase again and again. The words she says are foreign to Padme, but she can hear the peace in them. The vowels are drawn out, and pulled into open rhyme that remind her of the simple patterns from Naboo learning songs, but it's slower than a lullaby. It calls for patience. It promises peace. The patient's grip tightens on Padme's hand, and Leia screams in her crib. She tries to ignore the child, but Boil forces his mouth into a smile that's little more than a grimace, and releases her.

“She needs you,” he says, gruff and stoic.

As Padme rises to soothe her daughter, Beru's song grows deeper. Wider. It seems to fill the room, and fold them all into a hypnotic embrace. Her lips feel numb, as though the hum her sister had rooted her song in had passed through her own mouth first, and in the thrall, even Leia's vehement upset lapses into a weak protest.

And when the chip comes free in the hand of the _relkin_ Beru had brought to them, her song changes. It's light, and joyous, and the blood is staunched, the wound is stitched, and the _relkin_ hands the small, gold disc to a rather dazed Boil. It snaps easily in his hands, so much nothing. Beru ends her song with a welcome, greeting him with a hand to his forehead, and calling him _kol-depuan._ Unfettered. The _relkin_ smiles, and Beru laughs. Luke can hear his own name ring out through the air in reverent tones, and his effervescent chortle ripples throughout the room. Boil is free.

* * *

It's five days later when Padme sits him down for tea, Luke rolled up in her arms, and surprises the clone with a proposition.

“How much would I need if I wanted to hire you for a job?”

He pauses, his eyes narrowing as he tries to get a read on her intent while her daughter sits on his knee, contentedly manducating upon her long-suffering doll.

“Depends on the details of the job,” he says. “What do you have in mind?”

“I need you to bring someone in.”

"I don't do them cold."

"Of course not," she agrees.

The grip on her son shifts, the boy's head turns to study the firm set of his mother's jaw, the flat of her palm on his back encouraging him to adopt the same upright posture she holds in this moment of urgent sincerity. His solemn blue eyes are wide in awe of her, but her dark ones are fixed on her guest.

“Will they come quietly?”

“They never have before.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“Very.”

“Who is it?” Boil asks.

She lifts her chin, and proclaims the sentence.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

A wide grin breaks across his face like dawn racing over the dunes, and he laughs.

“Senator Amidala,” he solemnly intones. “I'll take that job for free.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on translations:
> 
> Amatakka (courtesy of fialleril)  
> upana-kassu... brother-daughter  
> ikkalli... little sister  
> relkin... a guide (typically on the freedom trail), and in this case, one who knows how to cut. Beru has connections.  
> depur... a slavemaster  
> kol-depuan... "unfettered," but typically applied to a slave who has taken their freedom into their own hands, usually by surviving the detonation of their chip. Which, though the chip which enslaves him is different than those implanted in the slaves Beru has seen, it has been triggered, and he has survived it.
> 
> Mando'a  
> "Ogir cuyir a adiik?"... "There is a child?"  
> "Adla senaar, adla laar"... lit. "Same bird, same song." An idiom that basically means "people of the same family pass along the same story until everyone knows it," similar to hearing something "through the grapevine."
> 
> Is that all the language in this chapter?


	4. vhekad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait? Is that a plot I hear baying out on the moors?
> 
> I just wanna say I’m shocked, pleased, and delighted by the reactions I’ve been getting to this story. Reviews keep me going, and I love hearing from you all! Thank you!

_From lowest shore she scrambled up the peak,  
_ _And reached the summit just as sunset fell,  
_ _Where there the starlight bubbled in a creek,  
_ _Whose water she collected in a shell._

\- The Forlorn Queen, Myth of the Ancient Naboo

* * *

Obi-Wan is thirsty. On Tatooine, they'd rationed their water carefully. Within days, their consumption of it had become ritualistic, relying as they had on the generosity of the Lars'. He'd check the tanks in the morning, and Padme would measure out careful allotments at sunrise, and sunset, and though after dark, he would pour back his evening portion by the time Owen came to replace their stock, there was never any water left to spare.

They saved a small amount for cleaning, but most surfaces and pots were simply scrubbed with sand and a dry brush. Clothes, too, were tumbled in a sand press, then beaten to relieve them of dust. There was a small sonic in the fresher for personal ablutions, but even thousands of lightyears away he can still feel the grit chafe away at his skin. It crusts in the corners of his eyes, and settles in the passages of his nose. It amasses in his ears, until all sounds are dull and warped as though he is underwater. It rolls between his teeth, and clings to his tongue. It tumbles down his throat, and whirls a tempest in his lungs. It dries him out, and chokes him, and leaves him gasping for water.

But there is nothing here to drink.

The blazing suns of Tatooine are far behind him, and he pulls his cloak tight to repel the cold. Space is as dry as any desert. He hasn't had a drink in days. He hasn't eaten in longer. These are the things a Jedi can go without, and he finds the longer he does so, the less he wants them. That is what the Code demands, and what he so willingly gives: abjuration of all things.

It hadn't been easy, at first. He'd left all that Bail had given him with Padme, and his initial flight had been funded by brief bouts of manual labor, and the odd maintenance task. A week of servitude had gotten him off Tatooine. On Bothawui, he overhears rumors of a meeting, of a massacre while scouting for his next benefactor, but the planet had been contentious ground for years during the war, and it's not long before he's recognised. A month of less than savoury applications of skill and cunning have him off it on the same day.

A trip to Nal Hutta costs a brute application of force to collect on a debt. He gets to Saki by sabotaging a minor crime lord's rival. On Nar Kreeta he performs a mind trick, and he lands on Kessel with a smuggler's cargo. By the time he finds what he's looking for, only the echoes of death remain. Eight more lives lost, eight more spirits consigned to the Force. And he's no closer to his goal. He's following footprints in the sand, too soon erased by the currents of the wind to know which way to go.

If only he could get ahead – or get close. The Emperor has made his seat on Coruscant, but Obi-Wan can't go there. It's too well fortified, and he's too well known. He has to skirt the edges of civilization, spiraling ever inward, honing in on his quarry, waiting for him to move, to leave, to expose himself in open space. The company he keeps these days will talk, if plied with enough alcohol and flattery, and he listens. There are reformations and amendments being made, new legislation being passed; he's never known anyone better versed in the articles of galactic law than pirates. Every day brings word of a raid here, or an offensive there. Separatist holdouts fight back and fall in rapid succession, the Imperial fist squeezing ever tighter, crushing the breath from the flayed corpse of democracy. They are the death rattle of the Clone Wars.

He follows the whispers, and muttered rumors to Vinsoth, then Fenion, Phindar, and Sheris, but he arrives to the victory cheers of Imperial forces. At least, with each successive landing he feels the bitter reek of evil grow stronger, and he knows that he is closing in. Five months later, and he's on approach to the moon of Teth, letting himself the revel in the bitter irony of his ploy as he claims asylum for himself, the poor victim of a hijacking he had only recently enacted upon the tiny crew of his stolen shuttle. They'd been jettisoned somewhere over the planet itself, and the small colony which approves his docking greets him with all due consideration for a wounded compatriot.  
“Them pirates will pick at anyone,” one man says. He's part of the ground-team for the tiny port, and passes by Obi-Wan with a sympathetic nod, and a gruff word of consolation. “Doesn't matter if you're someone or nobody, they think they're all bigger than gods out here. But things are a'changing. The new Empire won't stand for that _chiissk_.”

The Jedi nods, mouth grim, and head set at a solemn cant.

“I have heard rumors of the effectiveness of Imperial justice,” he says, but before the bitterness can seep through he changes tactics. “I'm afraid I have no money,” he continues, gesturing to his thrifted shuttle. Behind him, there are repairs being made, fuel tanks being filled, and diagnostics being run with the swift efficiency of all stop over ports.

“Nah, don't think of it,” the man says, hoisting a spool of adamite cabling higher on his shoulder. “You done us a favour, ridding us of them brigands – now we do you one.”

If there were anything left within him to feel, he would ache with guilt for this deception. But he's been consumed in the holocaust of Mustafar, his skin charred black, his heart lanced upon a spit and turned over and over until it blistered and burnt above those molten fields, his bones bleached white by twin suns. Nothing remains to feel sorry in the present. He is fueled by the past, and he will use whatever means necessary to reach the end. His – and Palpatine's.

“Where were you plannin' on going, young sir, before you was waylaid?”

And this is what Obi-Wan's been waiting for. This invitation to conference, the mutual exchange of information on the whatsits and happenings of the galaxy. Faster than the holonet, the ports and the people who worked them forwarded along all the news of the day, and in his bid to catch up to the Empire, Obi-Wan slices into these lines.

“I've heard about there being some relief work on Bandomeer,” he says. “Nothing much, but if it's an Imperial paycheck I'll take it. Least ways, they're good for the credits. Things have been a bit tough since the war.”

“Tougher for some than others,” his companion smirks. “If you're looking for work my idea's you get ahead of the game. Word is, the queen of Mandalore's just been set down by the new Emperor. Seems like they'll be needing some relief soon, too.”

Obi-Wan can't help himself, as surprise overrides common sense. “Mandalore doesn't have a queen,” he says, his brow furrowing. He can feel his bruised heart stutter in his chest, his dry throat seize, and the inside of his mouth turn thick, and woollen _._

His companion,formerly so salutary, stiffens in offense at the challenge to his authority. “Well, 'scuse me,” he replies, squinting in suspicion. “What's it matter so much to you for? You some kind of Republic sympathiser?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head, and offers the man his humblest smile, hunching his shoulders in deference. “No,” he replies. “Not at all. I'm just glad to hear that _laandur aruetii_ has finally been removed, and I can go home. _Vor'e_ , my friend. _Ret'urcye mhi._ ”

The man does not seem fully convinced, but neither does he understand entirely what Obi-Wan has said. He decides to protect his dignity rather than confirm his doubts, and moves along to assist with the repairs.

A few hours later, the Jedi sets off having taken neither refreshment nor repast. It is cold, and he is thirsty, but at last, he feels the tattered edge of darkness coming within grasp, loose tendrils of evil close within his grip, and he is determined to see his mission through. The true owners of the shuttle will have undoubtedly deployed their distress beacon and been picked up by now, but he is in the stars, and well beyond their reach. There will be anger, and humiliation. There will be blame. He is certain the revelation of his duplicity will come as no surprise to at least one of the deckhands on the moon of Teth, but he is looking to the future, and that is in the past.  
  


* * *

Boil makes sure that he leaves himself on Tatooine. The entire galaxy has been shattered by the wars, and even now, nearly a year later, the crystallized shards of star systems, and splintered peoples litter the cosmic wastes between planets. Republic dominions have transformed into Imperial strongholds, garrisoned and fortified. Expansion in the mid-rim has been converted into invasion, and those few outer rim territories unlucky enough to catch the interest of this new government have found themselves fertile ground for colonisation. And everywhere he finds these tyrannical advancements, Boil sees his own face. He needs to be rid of it.

But he is still _Mando_ , and that is something he will not forget, or leave behind. So he paints his armor, not erasing, but covering the markings of war, easing the faded yellow into a deeper gold until it covers each piece of beskar'gam entirely. He travels light, and alone, so he abandons the couters, and the rerebraces from his arms. He drops the fauld from his waist, and the poleyns from his knees. He wraps the greaves in the traditional puttees of the desert, to keep out the sands of this world, and the dirt of anywhere else he may go. His helmet is more difficult to adapt, and far too recognizable to leave untouched. So he pries off everything below the auditory sensors. The round barrels of the dymak exhaust filters are removed, the induction filters torn away, taking the conduit housing, and lateral seals with it. When he is finished, all that remains is the upper dome, and dorsal comm units. His face is hidden, but his jaw is left bare, square and firm in its exposure, the intent of his eyes shielded by the soldex filters, the remains of the forward air vents hanging like broken teeth in a grimacing mouth. So altered, the surviving framework doesn't look much different than a traditional Mandolorian bucket. Just another lost clanmate from a world embroiled in its own civil war. Just another bounty hunter.

The trick is in how to track his quarry. The Jedi he remembers is cunning, and sly, as liable to spring a trap as he is to slip out of it again. His face is nearly as recognisable as Boil's own, but without the benefit of ubiquity. He has no income, no assets, and few allies. He'll be traveling in disguise, or more likely, in the company of blackguards and scum – company Boil's recent exploits have provided a ready introduction to, and it's with them the freed clone begins his search.

Trouble is, with so much debauchery unleashed upon the stars, its difficult to separate the seeds from the sand. He pays off a fair number of people for clues and gossip that ultimately come up empty, but the rumblings of some trouble over Teth finally snags at some buried point in his memory. _Teth_. He knows that name – he knows it as more than a planet, or a moon. More than some base. It tickles in his mind like the punchline to a joke, and it makes him lean a little closer when the deckhand tells his story.

“Had some lout come up the other day,” the old grouch complains. “Young fella, fancy tongue. Talked his way into port with some sad story 'bout a hijacking, or some such rot. We'd been having troubles with pirates thereabouts, so the deck officer on duty takes pity on him. Lands him, fixes him, fuels him up, and sends him on his way. Only thing is – he ain't no victim. No, see, next thing you know, patrol's bringing in the crew of this here shuttle what's been bounced from their own ship, an' it turns out that _guarlat hussik_ had played us all along.”

Boil leans in, his hand closing tighter around his drink, his voice dropping dangerously into the commanding tones of a soldier.

“When was this?” he asks.

The man frowns, drawing back in derision. He looks at his compatriots who crowd the edges of the table with him, their own stories waiting to be told.

“I don't think I like your attitude,” he says, draining the rest of his flagon.

Boil grits his teeth, and leans back in his seat. Some of these spacer folk get their backs up quick, keenly aware of their own insignificance, and defiant of it, taking the slightest power where they can find it; at the sabacc table, from a brawl, or in the telling of a good tale. He forces himself to relax into a posture of nonchalance.

“My apologies, friend,” he assuages the deckhand, then waving down the serving girl he signals for two more. “One for me, and one for this fine gentleman here.”

The storyteller grins in smug satisfaction.

“That's more like it,” he says. “Now, where was I? Ah! When was it – well, couldn'ta been more than a se'ennight ago, I'd guess.”

Boil takes a long draught from his own mug, playing at indifference.

“Did he give you a name?” he asks.

“Course not,” the man says, aghast at Boil's idiocy. “He managed to pull one over all of us, so o'course he's not as stupid as'n that.”

“Then he got away, and no one knows where to?”

“Like a ghost, he was. Disappeared from sensors, and all the tracking chips removed.”

“A shame,” the clone sighs. “So few in the galaxy ever meet with the justice they deserve.”

The man hunkers down over his ale, twisting a ring on his finger in idle, evil speculation. “Well, now,” he says. “I figure that ain't always true. 'Fore he left he mentioned he was looking for work. I helpfully pointed him in the direction of Mandalore, but seein' as how they're in a bit of a muddle, odds are good he'll find more than a bit of trouble waitin' for him there.”

“Mandalore?” Boil asks. “Are you sure?”

“Sure as anythin',” the man replies. “Seemed upset they got rid of their queen. Thought he might be one of them sympathisers, but in the end, I'd bet he was just one of your _particular_ brand of scum, mando. And for all the trouble he caused us, I hope he finds nothing but ashes when he gets home.”

* * *

 _Mandalore_.

For all that it's in his blood, Boil has never been. What he knows of it, he's learned from the _vod_ on Kamino, or gleaned from the brothers he fought with. What he's heard of it is in the language they've kept between themselves, and the names they called each other. What he's felt – well...he remembers the agony of his General in the weeks following Sundari, when too few days could be spared to buffer one tragedy from the next. He hears the Empire's part in deposing a rightful regent with the support of a rival clan, and the heat of Mandalore blazes in his veins. His is voice rough with burning embers of fury, and the blood of yet another betrayal on his tongue when he opens that old frequency with none of the fearful hesitancy that stayed his hand for a year, and speaks.

“ _Ni cuy' echoy'la par ner kih senaar. Vaabir gar susulur bic laararir?”  
_

His voice could be one of millions, and his words mean nothing, but it is still a risk to ask this question.

“ _Ni cuy' echoy'la par ner kih senaar. Vaabir gar susulur bic laararir?”_

He asks it again, and again, moving through space, from Saleucami, to New Holstice, but on Velmor, he finally gets a reply.

“ _Ni cuy' echoy'la par ner kih senaar. Vaabir gar susulur bic laararir?”_ he sends into the velvet black of space.

His comm unit sparks into uncertain life, and crackles as his own voice comes back down the line.

“ _Ni ru'susulur kih kebiin senaar laararir,”_ the voice replies. “ _A kaysh ru'senar be'chaaj...”_

Hope and despair rise up within him simultaneously, grappling with each other as they scramble for purchase in his chest. He triggers the comm unit, then holds, uncertain what to say next as he waits for either emotion to overcome. “ _Ner senaar, ner senaar...”_ he breathes.

The voice on the other end chuckles in tones of gruff familiarity.

“He sings for bantha _chiissk_ , your bird,” they say. “But he's alive, though not for lack of trying. It's good to hear your voice, brother.”

Boil absolutely agrees. “Rex...”

* * *

They meet on the moon of Concordia, while the sun is high, and the predators which roam the fields at night, indiscriminate of their prey, are asleep. The moon, which once sheltered Concord Dawn, and gave birth to the treasonous Death Watch, is now home to more sympathetic rebels. Still under the nominal control of Bo-Katan, the fractured remnants of the Mandalorian Resistance which had not been routed at Vardoss have returned to the thick jungles and hidden mines of their origin. Rex steps forth from their depleted legions to greet his brother with a swift embrace, one hand on the inside of an elbow, his other on Boil's shoulder.

“It's good to see you, Boil,” he says, and Boil bows his head over their hands, a moment's reprieve to collect himself.

“And you,” he says. “It's been too long.”

“Did you come alone?”

“Yes,” he replies. “And I'm afraid I can't stay. I'm on a job.”

With a hand on his shoulder, Rex guides him into the underground complex. Its sleek walls of black granite speak to a surety of elegance the ragtag survivors seem to belie. But each Mandalorian he meets looks him in the eye, with stiff shoulders and unbowed backs. Their grace lies in their determination, and the righteousness of their cause. Bo-Katan, when he meets her, is no different. Though she lacks the icy aloofness of the duchess, the same core of majesty that bore Satine up stands equally unbending in her sister. It reminds him of another throneless queen, and for a second he tastes the desert. The similarities end there, though. She greets him palm to palm, with brusque pragmatism. There's no poetry in her tongue.

“You must be Boil,” she says.

“Yes, sir,” he says, instantly recognizing the implicit rank in her bearing. He stands at parade rest, his mutilated bucket beneath his arm.

“It's rare we're blessed with so many visitors in so few days,” she says. “Rarer still that we let them leave. Rex tells me you're looking for your little bird. You ought to have clipped its wings if you meant to keep it.” She shakes her head, thrusting aside a couple datapads, clearing some space on the tactical holomap before her. At a touch, the local system springs to life in the air around them, and they are dusted in motes of artificial starlight. As they revolve, Bo-Katan frowns, examining the options of her people as they consider the benefits of digging in, or getting out while they still can.

He waits, no excuse or explanation on his lips. Good soldiers don't need them, and bounty hunters...well, talking will only get you in trouble. One never knows what a pretty face may hide, or how loyalties may shift and slide in the wake of continuous tragedy.

The woman sighs, a sharp exhalation of air that hisses past her teeth, jettisoning her frustration as she jabs at the console, plunging the room into brief darkness before the houselights flicker on, their yellow glow lending things a sickly tint.

“Your Jedi isn't here,” she says. “He left a day ago.”

Boil shifts, his knees unlocking, and his weight dropping, immediately prepared to move out at her words. _Yesterday_. That means he's close. He could catch up to him within hours. Find him. Stop him from doing something foolish – incapacitate him if he has to – and return him to his rightful place in the dunes.

“He left? Did he mention where to, Lady Kryze?”

She shrugs. “The capital, he said. There's an investiture ceremony planned for tonight, and the Chancellor – rather our new _Emperor –_ is scheduled to attend. Seems Kenobi is determined to arrange a surprise reunion, the _jare'la di'kut.”_

The clone steps forward. Rex steps with him, his wary eyes habitually alert to sudden movements, but Boil can't stand on ceremony now. He clutches at his bucket, palms sweating, and tries to muster some semblance of proper deference, and patience.

“Sir, I have to get there,” he says, stumbling over his words. “As soon as possible. I have to find him. I know it's not my place to ask, and I don't mean to –” He disrupts his own ramblings. “A ship. I need a ship. And a pilot. And some men – if you can spare them. You know the _jetii._ They –”

Rex steps forward, laying a hand over the golden vambrace warm on his arm.

“Boil,” he murmurs, his voice low and conciliatory.

“We haven't got the resources to suit your aims,” Bo-Katan tells him. “If we did, we wouldn't have waited for the suicidal last stand of a broken Jedi to lead the liberation our people. What's left for us now is to retreat, and regroup. We must live today, so that we may fight tomorrow.”

“If the General defeats the Emperor today, then the tomorrow you prepare for won't exist. It will be here. And you can take it _now.”_

“You're mad if you think there's any chance Kenobi will succeed.”

“I have faith in my General.”

She laughs, dry and brittle. There's no humor in it, and the glint in her eye speaks of malicious pity, mockery, not confidence. “Tell me, when did you last see him?”

Boil grimaces, his brows drawing close and tight, and he wishes for the bleak anonymity of his helmet.

“I haven't,” he confesses.

“Then why have you come?”

“It's for a job,” he says. “There's a bounty on his head, and I said I'd bring him in for it.”

“Well, that's one business that hasn't suffered,” she mutters.

Rex tenses beside him, though it's not the admission of his profession which twists his features, but the implications of it. More than one Mandalorian has resorted to this less illustrious profession, and in less troubled times. There is no judgment against it. The honor is in the fight, not the circumstances which lead one there. But to a Commander of the GAR, the idea of collecting on one's superior, on one already so forlorn, and deceived...it's a bitter thought that sends a shudder of revulsion down his spine.

“How much are they going to pay?” he asks.

His reflection cocks his head in equally close contemplation.

“I'm not doing it for the money,” he says, and Rex grips his arm tighter. “I'm doing it for the client. You have to know – there's more than one son of _Ekkreth._ ”

The hand on his arm goes slack, Rex's eyes widening with shock until Boil can see the whites of them glimmer in the dim light, no longer shadowed by the weight upon his brow. He knows the story. He knows the name. But Boil shouldn't. _Couldn't._ It wasn't something Skywalker had shared widely, his past, and fewer still knew the legend that gave him his name, but after Kadavo, in the midst of their escape, in the belly of their ship, he'd whispered it to Rex in comfort.

“How can you...?” he breathes. Boil turns to him, grabbing him by the shoulders, his task pressing him harder than ever.

“I need to get to the capital. You have to help me. Don't you see? This is our only hope.”

And he must agree. Whatever he finds lurking in his double's eyes assuages his doubts, and he addresses his commanding officer at attention.

“Sir, if there's anything to spare...we owe the General.”

Bo-Katan weighs his words, and eventually her head dips in concession.

“There's a starfighter that just came into wet-dock you can take. It's a bit of a wreck, and there's no astromech, but it'll get you down there. I can't promise much more than that.”

“In that case, I'll need a pilot.”

“Sir, request permission to –”

“That's a no, Commander,” she snaps. “I need you up here. But don't worry, _ner'vod,_ this ship comes quite enthusiastically staffed.”

* * *

  
“She's seen better days, and the better side of more than a couple firefights, but she's a solid old beast,” says the kid Boil deduces to be his escort.

He's slight, with hair wavering indecisively between blond and copper, and sea-blue eyes that seem ageless in both wisdom and innocence. He walks the deck, doing his pre-flight check, hauling and coiling cables, and kicking discarded tools and purged bits of wire from around the landing feet.

“You a nervous flyer?” he asks.

“No,” Boil replies, but he can't help the skeptical line that's drawing deeper and deeper along his brow as he regards this kid's frenetic movement back and forth. He'd leapt at the chance to accompany Boil, hardly waiting for an explanation before he'd started scurrying around the ship, as eager to get it in the air as the clone he chaperoned. He can't possibly realise what he's in for.

“Well, that makes one of us, at least,” the kid says, then seems to realize this isn't precisely the sort of reassuring commentary a pilot should make before the passengers board his vessel. He doubles back to Boil, and stands before him in a posture learned from some military academy or other, but there's a fluttering edge of nerves to his presence, gilding his fingers, and sending his lip forth to be chewed in anxious contemplation. “I mean, I _can_ fly,” he clarifies. “I'm a good pilot. It's just – well, I don't prefer it. But don't worry. I'll get you down there in one piece.”

“Relax, kid,” Boil says. He grinds out the essence of a confident smirk, and adjusts the straps of his vambraces, then checks the power cells of his blasters one more time. He's still got his DC-15A. It's picked up a couple deep gouges, and the durasteel body is scratched from more than just Separatists and clankers. Despite that, the components slide easily against each, slotting into place with the satisfying click of a well-maintained weapon. There's an additional blaster strapped to his thigh, and where he used to store extra pulse grenades, he now has a thermal detonator or two. It's not enough. He feels this keenly as he imagines the forces waiting for them on the surface of Mandalore. The kid doesn't even have armor, and they're planning on racing Kenobi to the Emperor? It's madness.

“My name's not _kid,_ ” the kid retorts. “It's Kiorkicek Kryze.”

Boil grimaces, and struggles to hold back a little chuckle. “Your _buir_ call you that?” he asks.

The kid's face stills, his youth dropping away as his lips press together and that familiar crease between his brow appears.

“My mother is dead,” he says. “And my father doesn't recognise me.”

The clone drops his rifle to his side, and rests his hand on the young pilot's shoulder.

“Then he is _dar'manda,_ and the dishonor belongs to him alone.”

“Oh, I'm not embarrassed,” he grins, mood shifting as swiftly as dappled sunlight between the boughs. “But it _is_ a rather sentimental name for a man to bear. Usually, I just go by Korkie.”

“Is that better?”

Korkie laughs. “Well, it can't be worse.”  
  


* * *

It's dark by the time he reaches the Royal Palace at Sundari, the place of so many black memories. He thinks on them unwillingly, wishing they'd resign themselves to pitch and leave him to his mission in the icy desolation of spirit which passes for peace these days. It would be such a relief to let go. To forget.

He's come up through the undercity; a series of tunnels and decommissioned sewage lines he remembers perfectly from the year he'd spent on the run, and then from a futile escape attempt more recently, and an even more desperate flight mere hours later. The turns are reflexive, the markers obvious and familiar, and without any thought or conscious application of effort, he's slipping through the grated panel below the grand tapestry still bearing the sigil of Clan Kryze at the back of the Sylvan Hall. The remains of a formal state dinner lie splayed over long tables. Reds and blacks, the new Imperial colors, are strewn beneath the flatware, and hang as banners from the rafters, mottled by ghostly blues and greens cast by stained transparisteel panes arrayed in the fractured image of Satine. Obi-Wan steps closer to observe her image, caught in a shaft of moonlight and reverence. She holds a lily in her hands, pure white and unsullied, her eyes downcast, ashamed to look upon the Jedi before her. The sharp and piteous sound of breaking glass grinds beneath his foot, and he steps back, the threat of discovery pulling him abruptly to attention in the present moment.

The feting is done. The guests have all knelt to kiss the feet of their new ruler, sycophants in worship of the Great Emperor Palpatine. They have flattered, they have toasted. He has granted them the oversight of a puppet representative, and they have sworn him allegiance at the cost of their people's soul. Obi-Wan has come too late to save them once again.

But not too late to stop the Emperor.

He can feel him here still. Close. His foul decay. He's within the palace. The presence of the Sith is so thick in the air as to be palpable, and Obi-Wan chokes on it with every breath. A miasma of clinging ooze that coats his tongue in grease, gagging him, and twisting his guts in vicious spasms of revulsion. The pain of it is worse for all that it's familiar, and he can't believe he never recognized it for what it was before now. He yearns for the Light, thirsting for its amelioration, and the certainty of its strength, but he cannot find it here. A flicker, a glimmer in the corner of his eye – but it's just starlight falling through the tinted crystal.

He turns away, and presses deeper into the fathomless black, tugging himself forward along the leylines of evil. It is laborious, and delicate work as he attempts to keep himself as still as possible within the Force, a tiny fly creeping its way down the web of an arachnoid, fearful lest it should stir a thread and summon forth the agent of its demise.

The hall spills over into the vaulted arcade of the Throne Room, the site of so much butchery he can almost smell the blood which soaks the marble floors. But there is no blemish to be seen, the stain living only in his memory, the room lying still and pristine before him as he stands contemplative in the toothless maw of its magnificent entrance.

But he is not alone.

Inanition and thirst have whetted him, and he feels as keen and bright as the blade which ignites in his hand. It cuts the darkness before him, blazing a trail of cerulean fire, illuminating the night, and exposing the presence which observes him here, standing solemn and unmoving before the throne.

A slash of red flares to life, cutting a grisly wound in the shadows, bloody splendor clinging to the edges of the armored figure opposite him, setting the form alight, like some withered corpse upon its pyre. An ebony cape sweeps down to the floor, draped from a set of broad shoulders. Bionic limbs flex, the inner hydraulics of mechno-arms and legs whirring in predatory anticipation, as they are ignited by intent. The contour of a powerful chest is spanned by a narrow pauldron, leaving much of the torso shrouded in more flexible cloth beneath the exposed paneling of a regulatory unit, boldly suggesting that anything more would be superfluous protection for a body more machine than man. And at the crown, upon the figure's head rests a mask; the large, insectoid eyes are blank, the plastoid face rendered in a perpetual aspect of vacant menace. The Jedi's gaze travels over the inky wraith, cut from the fabric of reality itself and leaving behind a gaping black hole of nothingness. He seeks out features that might mark his opponent as recognizably human, but there are none. He faces a hollow man. A manufactured monster. Impersonal, and devoid of even the possibility of life, love, or passion. And yet, the mechanized rush of air, regulating each breath in and out, whispers secrets of human vulnerability.

Obi-Wan grips his saber, and drops into a cavalier stance of studied indifference.

“Another Sith puppet?” he drawls. “Does Sidious never tire of his ceramplast soldiers?”

The figure speaks, his voice deep and sonorous, rumbling low in his chest like the subaural growl of a grassland _strill_. “Obi-Wan Kenobi. Eager, as ever, to embrace your own death, it seems,” he says.

He does not care to have been identified, and neither does he mean to indulge in this diversion while his quarry slips its chain. He has tracked Sidious, followed in the wake of his destruction, witnessed the chaos of his brief reign for nine months, and he will be patient no more. The time is now, and he will not allow this opportunity to pass him by. He is unimpressed by this new menace.

“Forgive me, if I seem unconvinced that I shall find it here,” the Jedi drawls. He rolls the weapon in his hand, his shoulder blades dropping loose, and relaxed down his back, supremely unconcerned. There is no threat here.

His opponent exhales heavily, the labored breathing echoing in the cavernous room. The lights of the city break through the battened transparisteel walls, throwing phantom bars across the floor, imprisoning the adversaries within.

“Your insolence will not serve you anymore than your blade. There will be no negotiations, this time.”

“I do not negotiate with Sith,” Obi-Wan cries, his voice ringing with the defiance of his lineage, and the righteousness of his Order. “You have befouled the very pith of the Force with your rank villainy, and for that, I seek your master for the answer he would make.”

“A Jedi who would speak to me of villainy!” the Sith intones. “Your treachery has lead to the extinction of your kind. A consequence justly earned.”

“You have enslaved worlds. You have slaughtered innocents. And for what? To what end are your efforts bent?”

“Toward peace. And unity. Under our new Empire, there can be no place for the selfish maneuverings of corrupt politicians. The hypocrisy of the Republic is gone, and those blind fools who still cling to the old ways shall soon join it. The Sith are not the lap dogs of the Senate like the Jedi were. The Dark Side is strong, and I have embraced its strength.”

Obi-Wan's mouth twists to hear these vile lies repeated while the consequence of their proliferation lies charred to ash on the banks of Mustafar. How many more must hear such slander? How many more must bear the cost of madness and mania? How many more mothers must lose children? How many wives must lose husbands? How many brothers must be sacrificed?

The inspiration of combat sinks him into his knees, his toes press against the floor, his shoulders arch, and his saber rises in salutation.

“Your only strength lies in self-delusion. Palpatine will abandon you – I have seen it. You think you shall be the one to overthrow him and take his place, but better men than you have failed.

“There are none better than me.”

“There was one,” he says, as solemn as a vow.

He can feel the Will of the Force in the call of the fight. It shall be fast. It shall be decisive. And when it is over, he shall pursue the root of this evil and end the demon's ignominious rule. He will not hesitate, and he will not fail this time.

“Anakin Skywalker was weak,” the Sith goads.

“Anakin Skywalker was my brother. You insult his memory with your black putrescence, and in his name, I shall take my revenge upon you.”

The patient dominance of _Soresu_ is abandoned, as he raises his blade in the high guard of the _Shien_ opening stance. He leaps forward, drawing the Force with him and propelling himself across the floor, closing the gap between them in one ravenous stride. His back is arched, the momentum of a downward thrust on the edge of release when the Sith makes his reply.

“In his name? Why, master...don't you recognise me?”  
  


* * *

They slide between shadows, dashing across courtyards, and avenues, avoiding the press of crowds whose eyes are more speculatively engaged on the pomp of the Empire as it is paraded through the streets. Some people seem excited, happy for a restoration of peace, while others are more somber. There's resentment, and resignation, but very few look defeated.

The sounds of celebration herald the advance of the Imperial procession as the two insurgents near the palace, moving against the flow of state mandated observation. At the crossroads between the royal district the political sector, a tall man with grey eyes turns, catching them as they break from their cover to make their approach on royal grounds. Boil stops, holding his arm out and keeping Korkie behind him. The man holds the clone's gaze for a moment. Boil barely breathes, his hands shifting along the body of his weapon. Then, with no sign of recognition, with no twitch of either comprehension or confusion, the man turns back to watch the distant pageantry of Imperial troops, his eyes sliding away, moving over them as though they are utterly invisible, and Boil exhales in relief. There's no offer of help, and no cry of alarm. Sometimes, it's easier to see nothing at all.

Quietly – quickly – Boil and his companion move along, disappearing into alleyways and backstreets. The transparisteel towers loom over them, their upraised limbs casting deep shadows over the manicured square, the moon sneaking through to light their path as best it can without exposing them to watchful eyes. A few people loiter near the front entrance, but the doors themselves are barred.

He feels a tug at his elbow.

“Follow me,” Korkie hisses, darting for the near corner of the building, and tucking himself against the durasteel girded wall. There's an entrance cut into the stone, an old fashioned pinpad prompting them for access codes which Korkie provides without hesitation.

“It's hardly used for anything except maintenance,” he explains, as the computer processes his request. “And so far, no one's remembered to wipe any of my old access codes.”

Boil tries to match the kid's confidence, but any wrong move could bring officers and troops down on them in seconds.

The little light at the base of the pad blinks green, bleeping in congratulation at their success. The door opens with a puff of cool air, and Korkie grins. “They were unofficial codes to begin with,” he says, mischief in his eyes. “I'll give them a month before I count it as acute carelessness.” He steps through, bold as anything, and Boil follows with a familiar pang of fond exasperation.

The halls within are emptier than the courtyard, and darker besides. He's thankful for the optics of his bucket which compensate in the moon's absence, but Korkie isn't similarly attired. He must be moving solely by memory, because he leads the way deeper in the complex without stumbling.

They have a near miss with cleaning staff, and turn back from one passage which brings them close to the sounds of conversation and laughter, muted behind the door to a guard room, eventually finding themselves amidst the detritus of an elegant feast.

If the ceremony happened here, Boil assumes it must have been by invitation only, and he doubts those few exalted guests would choose to linger – if they had the luxury of choice to begin with. Perhaps the Empire did sanctify its sovereignty here, perhaps Mandalore knelt, and swore obeisance but if it did, it was only the barest show, and the players have abandoned it all too eagerly for any true expression of sincerity. Still...

“The Sylvan Hall,” Korkie tells him. “We hardly ever ate here. It's too small for state dinners, and too large for family ones. I suppose they wanted something both symbolic _and_ secure.” There's disgust barbing the tips of his words, and Boil follows the direction of his regard only to be arrested by the impressive portrait of the Duchess in colored transparisteel.

“My aunt,” Korkie whispers. Boil already knows.

“ _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum Satine Kryze,_ ” he says.

“ _Ni partayli, be'buir.”_ Whatever thrall ensnares them is cast off by the kid as he knocks Boil on the shoulder, and guides him to a small panel below a magnificently ornamented arras hanging behind the head of the table.

“A hidden passage?” Boil murmurs.

“Yeah,” Korkie agrees. “And recently used. I'll bet Kenobi came this way.”

“But the question is: where's he gone now?”

“Well, I haven't heard any explosions, or screaming...”  
  
Boil straightens, and surveys the room at large for any evidence of his General's transgression.

“Me neither. I guess that means there's still time to find him,” he says, insinuation hanging heavily between them.

“Before he does something...rash?” the kid suggests with only the slightest of hesitations.

“It's okay, kid,” Boil sighs. “You can say _stupid_.”

They dash back to the entrance, careful to avoid dangling table cloths and skewed furniture, lest they send dishes tumbling to sound the alarm. The corridor outside branches in three directions, and they pause at the archway, calculating the next move between them.

“If there's a reception it's possible they've arranged it in the Parlor Verde,” Korkie says, pointing down the corridor to their right.

“And it's equally possible that _shabuir_ is gone, the General with him, and we're stuck here chasing ghosts.”

Korkie says nothing. He bites his lip, considering the objectivity of his senior partner and commanding officer in this venture, blue eyes darting over his face. Boil hopes the dark conceals the majority of his uncertainty, but it does nothing to disguise the frustrated curse he lets out beneath his breath.

“...Do you think we should go back to the ship?”

The weight of his decision settles between his teeth, and Boil grinds it like grain through a mill. There are no good options. No certain ones, at least. To their left, the hallway is dark, and abandoned, but providing perfect cover for someone to wait in ambush, or sneak about unseen. Before them, lies the direction from which they came, already explored and cleared once but not secure enough to guarantee that state beyond their own previous occupation of it. To the right, the hall is lined by a number of doors, all closed and shuttered, but there's a faint, golden glow in the distance – the promise of people, and a welcome waiting for them, though it's unlikely to be a warm one. There could be a reception. The Emperor could still be here. The General might still be close. But if they go looking that way and are wrong, then they'll lose the advantage of anonymity, of celerity, and of time.

And yet, to not even look...

“No,” Boil says, his jaw set, and countenance firm. “Rex has got eyes in the sky. If anything suspicious had left local airspace, he'd have comm'd.”

“Are you sure?” Korkie asks.

The face Boil turns to him is the impassive mein of a soldier. There is no hint of humor or doubt, everything about him seems chiseled from stone, absolute and unyielding.

“I'm sure, kid,” he says. “Let's go join the party.”

Despite the rigidity of his armor, and the unmoored components of his blaster, and the detonators at his waste, despite the hard soles of Korkie's boots, and the beskar chevrons on his uniform, they are silent in their egress. The hall is long, and they approach the parlor in short bursts of movement, closing the distance quickly, but between the concealing shadows of one threshold and the next, Korkie stops, stuttering to an abrupt halt, as though collared by some unseen hand. He throws his arms out to catch his balance, his head whipping back to some fixed point behind them. Boil has already flung himself against the wall, and gauged the little space remaining to their target when he realizes his companion hasn't joined him, tucking in close at his back.

Instead, he's standing there frozen. Right in the open. And there are voices coming near.

“ _Korkie!”_ he hisses, his breath rumbling across the syllables with vehemence.

The boy snaps back to face him, turning to the sound of his name. He meets Boil's look with wide eyes, then he blinks, his gaze drawing inward and his forehead wrinkling in thought.

“Korkie, get over here, now!”

But he shakes his head. A shadow seeps across the floor, heralding the arrival of imminent company. It catches Korkie's eye in the same instant that Boil raises his blaster, preparing to fire, but desperately willing the kid to spare him the act and exercise a modicum of common sense in the meantime. This is not how he wanted to announce their presence. It's premature. He was still hoping vaguely for some kind of subterfuge to get them inside, or at least, convenient air ducts.

He glances back at the kid to ensure he's found some cover, but instead, he watches helplessly as Korkie lifts his chin and whispers, “Follow me,” then jogs back the way they came, slipping between the fold of a massive set of doors.

“ _Shab ibic shab shabuir,”_ spits the clone, and in the instant before the being whose shadow proceeds them appears, he throws himself into the open, flies across the width of the hall, and dives between the doors that swallowed Korkie moments ago.

Then, in exactly the way Boil had feared it would, all hells break loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look at all this language stuff happening.
> 
> Mando'a:  
> laandur aruetii... pathetic traitor  
> vor'e... thanks  
> Ret'urcye mhi... goodbye; may we meet again  
> vod... brothers  
> “Ni cuy' echoy'la par ner kih senaar. Vaabir gar susulur bic laararir?”... "I am searching for my little bird. Have you heard it sing?"  
> “Ni ru'susulur kih kebiin senaar laararir, a kaysh ru'senar be'chaaj.”... I heard a little blue bird sing, but it flew away.  
> jare'la di'kut... reckless idiot (read: fucking moron)  
> buir... parent  
> dar'manda... intense state of dishonor so profound one is no longer recognised as being Mandalorian.  
> "Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum Satine Kryze."... "I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal Satine Kryze."  
> "Shab ibic shab shabuir."... um, it's rather rude. "Fuck the fucking fucker."


	5. pirun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm done with this chapter. But you know what I'm never done with? REVIEWS! Love em, and leave em, I say. I mean...that' doesn't make - you know, just enjoy! I hope you enjoy! And I really appreciate any and all feedback. Happy...Thursday?

_She brought this vessel back unto the Moon,  
Who smiling, raised it up to kiss her lips,  
And drank away the blazing_ _heat of noon -  
The resolute young queen had not one sip. _  
  
\- The Forlorn Queen, Myth of the Ancient Naboo

* * *

They enter the room in time to see the Jedi drop, cut from the air as though a man from a noose, as though the Force itself has abandoned him between one breath and the next. He tumbles to the marble floor, his saber extinguishing itself, and skittering away into the dark like so much vermin. Only the crimson glow of his enemy's weapon illuminates them now. With the heavy movements of agony, the Jedi drags himself to his knees, and sits supplicant, palms upraised and empty at the feet of the Sith.

" _No,_ " Korkie breathes beside him. He leans into his shock, whatever it was that had propelled him through the doors now frozen in equal horror at the scene as he arrives at the realization Boil follows him to just seconds later: they are too late.

They are across the hall; they are impossibly far from their target. They are separated from the scene by more than a desperate lunge, by more than a cry of protest, by more, far more, than the vengeful arc of a burning blade. The Sith, cloaked in the despairing folds of blackest night, lifts his saber; the Jedi lifts his arms, higher. Stretching. Reaching. Grasping. His hands flex, his fingers splayed, straining for something above him. And in the moment before release, the world inhales. The air turns heavy, weighted with humidity. Light, actinic and fleeting, flares to life and dies in brief surges of energy around the room, leaping between durasteel brackets, and beskar struts. The hair on Boil's arms rises to meet it. He feels like he's drowning. This is the last breath, the last moment before the body gives in, and death is ushered in by a smothering peace.

Korkie gives a desperate gasp, choking on the small whimper of protest that escapes, not yet resigned to their defeat. “No...”

A pearl of water condenses along the ridge of Boil's vambrace, and rolls down his arm before being absorbed by his under-gloves, touching his skin with just the barest memory of moisture. He raises his arms, his weapon cradled within their embrace.

The hum of a saber rises like the tide in his ears. He can taste iron on his tongue. The blade meets the maximum potential of its apex, then...

“ _NO!”_

Boil pulls the trigger, a torrent of rapid fire plasma erupting from the mouth of his blaster, drawing the Sith's blade into a necessary defense for just a moment. Korkie breaks away, streaking ahead into the wild array of deflected bolts, and crackling electricity, heedless of the near misses, and close calls. Then, up goes another cry.

It's harsh, and dry, fretted with the high tones of anguish as it bursts from the fallen Jedi as though ripped from the marrow of his bones, twisting sinew, and wrenching flesh from muscle, joints from sockets, tearing through the tender viscera of a devastated body. His hands clench, and as if he were bringing down the sky itself, he throws himself back and _pulls._ The building moans, a giant woken from slumber and induced into rage. The foundations below Boil's feet shudder. The girders scream, as metal writhes against metal, twisting away from their moorings. Transparisteel windows, and panes of decorative clari-crystalline so recently restored to reflect the grand majesty of the new Empire, now pop and shatter, raining down a tempest of cutting crystal. Boil lifts his arms reflexively, the volley of blaster fire ending as the palace begins to tumble down around them. They are being buried alive.

Stone walls collapse inward, breaking off in sections, and carving great gouges in the marble floor, sending shrapnel flying through the air. Beams, and pillars buckle. The rafters snap as they are crushed in the grip of the Force, and fall to the floor as great whip lashes laid to flesh. Between them, Korkie still moves, still races ahead, head down, breast bent, and Boil can see the Sith now freed from Boil's assault, refocus his attention on the General. Boil sees him, too, coiled upon the floor, unmoving, and possibly already dead.

If he left now, he might avoid the devastation wrought by the Jedi, he might still escape with his life, but the thought doesn't even cross his mind. He is loyal to Kenobi. He is indebted to Kenobi. He is Kenobi's man through-and-through, and there is no order now enslaving him to the bonds of treachery. He chooses to stay, and he chooses to fight, and he raises his rifle again, and fires on the Sith, drawing his attention, and giving Korkie that one extra minute of opportunity. He was born for the Jedi and in that he had no voice with which to speak. But he will die for _this_ Jedi, and he swears that no force can ever sway him from his decision.

The Sith turns to the clone, now, and raises his hand in a fist. Boil feels his throat constrict, and his feet leave the floor. He drops his blaster, clutching at the invisible grip, gnashing his teeth in defiance. He will not close his eyes, he will not plead, or squirm like a fish. He will hold his gaze, he will stare into those blank opals of dispassion, and he will make him fight for every second he steals from Boil's life.

“I've got him!” The kid falls to his knees at Obi-Wan's side, pressing him, turning him to his back, seeking quiet assurances of life, but in the chaos of the crumbling hall he's guided more by hope than logic.

Boil is dropped without ceremony, landing hard but upright on locked knees. Despite himself, the room is spinning, and his lungs are heaving with effort. He needs to _move_ , to help, but his body demands a moment to collect itself. The Sith sees Korkie, the kid not hesitating to drag Kenobi upright, and haul him over his shoulder, wary of Vader but not willing to abandon the Jedi, or negotiate for his release. He staggers under the weight, then rights himself, jaw set, and Boil recovers his blaster to fire again, screaming out his defiance. A lucky bolt blazes across the black cloak of the Sith, and in between his surprise and outrage, the roof caves in.

Boil dives for cover in the archway of the entrance, hunching his shoulders, and turning his face to the wall, thinking for a moment of how the filters he'd torn from his helmet would be useful right now. The thunder of crumbling architecture fades, and the portentous atmosphere is blown out in a gust of air and dust that Boil still closes his eyes to though his face is shielded by the golden visor he wears. And in the immediate aftermath, there is silence.

He can hear his breath come out in heaving exhalations, and his heart beating against his ribs and reverberating through his core, and in his ears. Cautious, lest he surprise the wreckage into further dissent, he turns. The hall is gone, reduced to rubble, the sleek sophistication of marble, and crystal coalesced into a pit of curdled, gray ash. Above, the sky arcs pristine and exquisite, stars framed in the ragged embrace of ruined cornerstones. A cold wind prowls over the scene, hovering over this piece of debris, or that, turning tattered banners over in its hands, and humming lowly to itself in sorrow.

Then, someone coughs.

“Sergeant Boil!”

He scrambles over the stones, as mindful of his footing as his haste will allow. The memorial courtyard that had edged around the outside of the hall, discreet and refined in its design, now seems to crowd curiously into the space. People are beginning to appear, drawn by the spectacle, and stunned by yet another massacre bent upon their capital. A hand breeches the surf of rubble as though part of the scree come alive, life conjured from stone by the sheer will of an artist. Boil takes it in his, kicking away larger rocks, and putting his rifle aside to brush back dust and splintered durasteel.

A small cavern is exposed, forged by the pressure of opposing beams that lean together like injured comrades, their mutual surrender bolstering them against one another and forming a fragile refuge. Inside is Korkie. His face is pale, white in the moonlight, streaked with ash and cinder, as he raises it to regard Boil as the clone hauls him up and away from the warren, revealing the still form of the Jedi curled beneath him.

“Are you hurt?” Boil demands.

Korkie just shakes his head, mouth hanging open and fumbling in the way of someone dazed by a grenade, but still stumbling forward resolutely on their mission. His hands join Boil's as they raise the body below from its crude sepulcher. Gray boots, gray tunics, gray skin and hair, the monotony of color is broken only by the cruel streaks of blood that stream from the Jedi's ears, mouth, and nose. Laid out on his back, the blood pools in the hollows of his face, and Boil looms over him, evaluating.

“Is he okay?”

He can't hear anything, but that might be the ringing in his ears drowning out telltale signs of life. Frustrated, Boil tears the helmet from his head, and leans down, bringing his cheek low over the General's mouth, and holding his breath as he waits for the susurration of another.

It comes. Soft, halting, and uncertain, but he breathes.

And so does Boil. He thrusts his rifle at Korkie, bullying the kid aside as he lifts the General into his arms, and takes stock of their situation. Civilians are staring from the safety of the yard, while coming from the depths of the palace behind them, and from the lower level of the streets beyond Imperial troops are gathering, forming a tight perimeter around their location. He shifts the burden in his arms, lifting the General higher against his chest, tucking his face close against his neck so he can feel the fluttering exhalations, each one a reminder of his duty. Korkie whirls around, anxious and scared, hoping for a point of egress, or the salvation of a familiar face. Unfortunately, Boil recognises every face.

But none are brave enough to recognise him.

There is nothing left but to surrender.

* * *

“Here's the thing,” Korkie says, while testing his weight on the foot he'd discovered was sprained a bit belatedly in the course of their capture. “I've actually broken _into_ this prison once before, so I don't see why it should be a problem getting _out._ ”

“I don't think the Empire's particularly bothered with where we end up, kid,” Boil grunts. He's down to just his armor, now, having been stripped of all his weaponry by brothers who were as intimately familiar with every pocket and and compartment on his uniform as he was. But beyond disarmament, there's been no concentrated effort to neutralize them, no interrogation, no bargains proferred for information. Apparently, they're not a threat. Boil's never been so insulted in all his life.

However, he is slightly consoled by the black eye he has to show for the fight he gave them up top, when they ripped his General from his arms. He'd lost that encounter, too, and Obi-Wan was dragged off, strung up between two troops without even an effort at consciousness.

They can see him from their cell, still unconscious, still listless on the floor of a chamber opposite. This is the only thing keeping Boil's calm from bubbling over into furious indignation, because if he can _see_ the General, then he can still see there's hope. Even if there is an entire squad of troops currently dedicated to securing the senseless man.

Korkie limps up and down the cell. Once assured of his fitness, he turns to the flat wall behind them, his back to the transparisteel door, blue with heavy deposits of lommite to ensure their complacency. He tracks a hand through his hair, rustling what's left of the tidy lines it began its day in, and knocking them up into thick spikes, and riotous whirls. This chaos adequately stirred, he drags his palm down the side of his face, curling his fingers in a contemplative crook over his mouth, and resting his elbow in the hand of his other arm, crossed at his waist. The wall he regards is a plain slate of durasteel, but Boil supposes there may be some peace in the study of simplicity. But that's a philosophical debate for later. Right now, he's preoccupied with staring at Obi-Wan, willing him to wake up, willing the guards to disperse or get bored, or get complacent in a way he uniquely knows is an impossibility for them.

“Do you know, I also did a little slicing in school?” The kid continues.

“You don't say.”

“At the Academy. I wasn't half bad, but of course, once the war began, necessity importuned us and we were forced to rely on less _civilized_ tactics.”

“Civility doesn't make you any less dead whether you're shot with a blaster, or cut by a blade,” Boil grumbles. He's trying to concentrate, but there's something frittering away his attention, more than just the kid's pontification on the merits of gentlemen's warfare – one of the clones wears his armor marked with an ensign he knows.

 _“..._ there's a quick release to this panel here – since each unit is designed to function as its own independent chamber with separate air cycling, temperature regulation, and security protocols. That means that the prison – or even a majority of cells can be sabotaged or breached without compromising the integrity of any specific individual one. It has many significant benefits in terms of being a method of detainment, namely the fact that you can hold a variety of species in a single location, accounting for any number of miscreants with perhaps incompatible physiologies, but it also means that each room has a unique weakness and I –” There's a light popping sound as Korkie moves the invisible panel aside, exposing their cell's own unique processing unit. “I happen to know exactly where it is.”

He grins up at Boil from where he's crouched in the corner of the room. His back is to the guards, and blocks the view of any idle observation their enemies seem disinclined to spare. Still, Boil's on his feet, yanking Korkie to his, and adding another layer of obfuscation between the troops and their means of escape.

“What're you doing, kid?” he growls.

Korkie's surprise swiftly morphs into insolence. “I'm trying to find a _solution_ to our imprisonment, instead of dwelling miserably on the _problem_ of it,” he retorts.

“In plain sight?” Boil releases the kid, but doesn't step out of his space, crowding him into the corner, and forcing him to lift his chin, and bare his throat to make eye contact. There is no capitulation in Korkie's glare.

“No one's watching,” he argues. “You said it yourself: they don't give a thranctill's wing about us, and we're running out of time. If they're keeping General Kenobi alive it must be because someone more important is coming to claim him, and frankly, I'm rather disinclined to find out who that someone may be.”

The clone grits his teeth. He tries for patience, but it's difficult to muster in regards to the arrogant insubordination of youth, whether he's right about Kenobi's fate or not.

 _“_ Hey! _”_ A voice, not Boil's but just as rough, and accented in the same way calls to them, and Boil can't help the dismayed twist of his head as he favors Korkie with a look delicately balanced between outrage and irony.

“I thought you said they weren't even watching,” he mutters.

Korkie glances at the approaching clone, offended by the unconscious undermining of his argument. “Well, they _weren't_ ,” he says. “Until _someone_ tried to start a fight.”

“Believe me, kid,” he says. “Between you and me, there isn't any fight.”

“ _Hey,”_ the voice comes again, closer and more insistent. Boil turns, as the commanding officer of their guard steps right up to the barrier, and peers at them through it, eyes squinting, and head tilted. His brow beetling together, he says, “Don't I know you, trooper?”

 _Kano_ , Boil thinks. _That's his name._ And he remembers the clone sergeant from Ryloth, when the 501st were still laboring under the yoke of a righteous war, regarded as liberators, and agents of democracy, an open hand extended in friendship. Now, they're a closed fist.

Kano was under General Skywalker. He was a notorious grump, with a veteran's healthy disdain for shinies, and he always drew the short end of the stick when it came to leading younger brothers through their inaugural missions, but his survival rates were unrivalled by other platoon leaders. More to the point, Rex has a flagitious sense of humor and his men either appreciated it, or bore it with grace out of respect for their dauntless Commander. Boil prays that Kano was of that fold when he confirms their acquaintance on the outskirts of Lessu.

“I was with you on Ryloth,” Boil says.

The sergeant says nothing in reply, but his fingertips trace over the slightly raised paint that still marks the upper dome of his helmet. The design is less intricate – less specific than the portrait Boil had boasted – but the small black circle wreathed by two curved lines reminiscent of a Twi'lek's lekku could denote no other campaign. It was one of the few offensives Boil could look back on without guilt, or doubt. They'd saved people. They'd freed people. And they'd followed the Jedi to a noble victory. Boil thinks of Numa, and he thinks of Leia, and he wishes impossibly for Kano to remember it the same.

The sergeant looks over his shoulder towards the Jedi's cell, then moves off, and Boil is left wondering if he's concerned more with Kenobi, or the comportment of his men.

“He another friend from the good old days, then?” asks Korkie, his accent clipped into pertness.

Boil stares after the clone.

“A brother.”

* * *

Contrary to his professions of competency, Korkie finds slicing into the mainframe of their cell a bit of a challenge. It doesn't help that his efforts must be practiced on the periphery of observation, with frequent interruptions and more than one outright abortion which results in enough sparks to cause concern, but not enough to set off the alarms and expose their machinations to discovery. He doesn't quit though, even as the first hour cycles into the next. His determination doesn't waver, despite his repeated failures. His conviction doesn't fade, not even when a detachment of guards enters Kenobi's cell, prodding the Jedi into vague wakefulness, and carting him off to a fate unknown, but greatly to be feared.

Boil lunges forward, the swing of his fist cut short by the transparisteel door of their prison. “No!”

“Patience, patience, patience,” murmurs Korkie, wrists deep in the open panel, not sparing a glance for the movements of the guards behind him.

“Time's up, kid,” Boil growls, as he launches himself bodily against the door. The transparisteel reverberates with a hollow ring, the low note a death knell in Boil's head. His armor is not of the quality of true beskar'gam, and yet it has withstood greater impact than this, but still his teeth rattle, his neck snaps, and he feels something crack in his shoulder as his desperation grows. He throws himself over and over, his feet leaving the floor in an effort to enlist gravity's aid, until suddenly –

He's through.

He lands on the other side of the barrier, and stumbles at the lack of resistance. Korkie stands in the corner behind him, and for a moment, neither say anything, their mutual surprise holding them motionless.

When Korkie speaks, it's with the rapid, embarrassed delivery of a child caught out in the middle of a prohibited exercise.

“I didn't think that would work – I mean, I – well, it was just an inversion of the –”

But Boil doesn't have the time to listen, and in an instant he's sprinting down the catwalk, leaping durasteel railings, his feet beating against the metal in frantic, heavy steps. He hears Korkie's lighter gait behind him, but doesn't look back to check if he's close. The first trooper he passes looks stunned, the second squares his shoulders, his rifle lifting, but Boil doesn't stop. He has the advantage of surprise, and that, by its nature, cannot last, so there's no time to get his bearings, there's no time to watch his back, there's no time to second guess.

Bolts fly as he and Korkie break from the lowest level of the maximum security wing, and race toward the central shaft. There's one way in, and one way out, and he'll be damned if Kenobi's leaving this floating scrap heap without him. He palms the call for the lift, then falls flat, his back to the wall, waiting for whichever fate arrives first. Korkie skids around a corner, eyes-wide, and chest-heaving as he sprints to join Boil. The doors hiss open, and Korkie's through them first, Boil close behind, and a few stray blaster bolts sneaking through to join them, scorching craters in the polished metal, but missing their more vulnerable targets.

The doors close, the cage drops, gravity joining it a second later, turning Boil's stomach but he hardly notices it amidst the churn of fear, and the thrill of adrenaline. They hit the bottom, the air cushion hissing its release, and when the doors open one more time, Boil finds himself staring back in equal shock.

Kano, his helmet tucked under his arm, recovers quickly, shoving hard against Boil's shoulder, driving him back into Korkie, hovering behind him, back into the hollow of the lift tube. Beyond, Boil can see clear to the landing pad, where a contingent of five troopers hustle their Jedi captive up a ramp, disappearing into the bowels of a small shuttle, crouched like a beetle braced for flight. At the base, two more troopers, clad in black armor of a sleeker design than Boil's own, stand at attention, their blasters laid across their chests. That's eight, at least. Boil can take eight.

Then the doors close, Kano locks the lift in place, and Boil's focus is brought back to the clone in front of him. He leans into the push, throwing off the weight of Kano's arm. Korkie staggers backwards, into the corner. Kano drops his helmet, and the two clones grapple, their conflict brought to an abrupt stop as Kano gets his hand on his side-arm, and brings up under Boils chin.

“ _Udesii._ Don't be stupid, _ner vod,_ ” he growls. “Don't die for a _di'kutla jetii._ ”

“Don't speak to me of brotherhood,” Boil snarls, pressing his neck closer to the barrel with utter contempt, “When you have already killed so many of your own.”

He half expects the mouth of the blaster to twist deeper, to bite into his flesh with cold metal and a hot plasma bolt, but instead, Kano blinks. He wavers. His voice, when it comes again, is frail and mottled with uncertainty.

“Good soldiers follow orders,” he says, the words empty of comfort from so many repetitions in the face of so many atrocities.

“ _Ner vod laam'ja ner oyay,”_ Boil hisses. “I remember you from Ryloth. You followed Skywalker, then. You trusted him. Hells, you probably _liked_ him. He was _gar jetii_. _Gar vod_...I am not the one of us without honor.”

“I...I don't remember,” Kano says. It falls from him like a confession. He squeezes his eyes shut, and shakes his head, trying to break free of some invisible bridle. The more he fights it, the tighter the binding becomes, drawing him this way and that, circling round and round like the breaking of a young _orbak._ The small blaster clatters to the floor, where it is resourcefully collected by Korkie, still hopeful enough to have an eye for opportunism. But Boil takes pity, collecting his trembling counterpart in his arms, and propping him down against the wall.

“Hey, _udesii, vod. Nu vaabir chaabar te aru'e; akaanir kaysh,_ right? Take a breath.”

“Don't you hear that? I _must_ follow orders...”

“No, _ner vod_ ,” Boil soothes. “It's only in your mind. You must _choose_ your orders. You must choose your own path.”

Kano struggles, but Boil does not let go. Korkie stands, and tucks the blaster into the waistband of his pants, and studies the control panel in a gallant attempt to establish some privacy for the two soldiers huddled on the floor. Kano's breathing evens out against the steady presence of Boil, though his protestations are more difficult to control.

“The Jedi are traitors,” he bites out in a harsh whisper. This confirmation eases some of the pressure building behind his eyes, and he nearly weeps in relief. Desperate for that peace, he says it again, and again. “The Jedi are traitors. They must be eliminated.”

“No,” Boil murmurs back, after his comrade's voice has gone hoarse, strangled into dust by his own internal conflict. “ _We_ are the traitors, _vod._ It's us.”

Kano sags against him. “I remember Ryloth,” he says.

“ _Mirdir be bic ti ner'sat,_ ” says Boil. “And help us save our brother now.”

* * *

The shuttle departs the landing pad prematurely, much to the alarm of the 501st squadron and the Purge units standing by. They're in the air, and they're dropping clear of the compound, and Korkie is punching in clearance visas, and the roof of the bio-dome is blinking open like some great, sleepy eye, and they're racing through it before the troops below manage to scramble an assault team to bring them back.

“We'll be leaving Sundari airspace in approximately thirty-seconds,” Korkie calls back through the cockpit, as Boil incapacitates the last of the troops stationed on the vessel at the time of their acquisition, voiding the airlock and letting the wind sweep them out. “Is he okay?”

“Kriff it,” Boil spits. “I have no idea.”

A listless Obi-Wan Kenobi lies prone on the floor in the aft compartment where he'd been dropped by two startled troopers. He stirs at Boil's inquiring touch, but only to flinch and pull away, falling deeper into the safety of oblivion.

“What do you mean?” calls the bright voice from the cockpit.

“Just get us out of here, Kiorkicek!”

Boil runs his hands over the Jedi's head, and neck, the pattern of a field assessment coming back to him as though he'd never left the battlefield. The blood from before is dried, and crusted along his cheekbones, and neck, but still sticky and oozing from a gash just above his hairline Boil hadn't noticed before. Beyond that, he doesn't see any real reason for this prolonged unconsciousness, which worries him. But there is one small blessing in it, he thinks, and immediately feels guilty for the thought – At least this way, there's no one to dispute the course of his strategy.

“Sorry, sergeant, but that's not going to be possible.”

“Oh, for kriff's sake,” Boil mutters. He lifts Kenobi, and carries him into the forward compartment, depositing him upright in one of the rear seats, and fastening his harness, not at all confident Korkie's news doesn't include the possibility of a crash sooner rather than later. He locks the aft seal, and then the mid seal behind them, before leaning over the shoulder of his procacious pilot. “What now?” he asks.

Korkie's brow is furled, one hand curled tightly over the steering yoke, the other flittering over the control panel, depressing buttons, flicking switches, turning red to green, and calming the flash of various alarms and alerts.

“Well,” he says. “Evidently, the Empire has finally grasped the finer points of our daring escape, and um, we're being pursued. Fighters.”

“There's a rear laser cannon, right? I'm on it –”

“– And more importantly, it seems as though this ship is _not_ hyperdrive equipped.”

That brings Boil up short.

“ _What?_ ”

“– Or, rather, it has the capability of it, but it's been disabled.”

“Disabled? How? Why?” Boil leans deeper into the kid's space, trying to make sense of the blinking board, and the rapid fire binary flaring across one of the navscreens.

“I don't know,” Korkie retorts, giving his shoulder a vicious shrug in an attempt to dislodge Boil from his louring perch. “It's not like I _chose_ this shuttle –”

“Can you fix it?”

“ _Fix_ it? I'd need to be an astromech droid, or a mechanical genius –”

“You sliced us out of that cell!”

“That's like comparing surgery to butchery! I can't just –”

But whatever he can't do remains unarticulated as the shuttle is rocked by the impact of an ion blast breaking against its rear shields. The vessel pitches to the right, the nose pulling up sharply. Boil braces himself against the wall, clinging to the back of the pilot's seat, while Korkie wrestles bodily with the steering shaft.

“ _Sithspit!_ ” he shouts, managing to subdue the ship, bucking like a beast beneath them.

Boil finds his legs, and staggers over to the gunner station, tucked behind the co-pilots seat. He straps in, his fingers closing over the controls, and the visplate dropping over his eyes, the image of their rearward pursuers crackling into frame. The cabin heaves, and tilts, each effort at evasion drawing a vehement curse from Korkie, while Kenobi yields limply to every impulse of centripetal force that's conjured. Boil sets his jaw, and pulls the trigger. He hits one, sending their enemy spinning out in a tempest of black smoke, but still more come, firing cannons and occasionally landing a hit.

“Relax, Korkie,” he instructs, trying to get a lock on another assailant.

“ _You_ relax,” the kid snaps, forcing the shuttle into a sharp dive, and a sudden ascent. “This is exactly why I _hate_ flying!”

They exit Mandalore's atmosphere beneath the belly of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. For a moment, Boil takes in its edges and angles, seeing the memory of brotherhood and battle beneath its monochrome plating, but this is not the _Negotiator_. Still...the resemblance is more than the shadow of a recollection, and he urges Korkie to the vehicle's starboard side in the opening maneuvers of a tactical assault.

“Bring us round at ninety-degrees,” he orders. “Skim along the lower decks, as close as you can get, and conduct all firepower to the forward guns.”

“You want us to _attack?_ ” Korkie yelps. “Perhaps this would be an opportune time to point out that we are not, in fact, a squadron in the Grand Army, and as such have neither the capability or support required to –”

“Shut it, kid, and reroute that power,” Boil says.

“Aye, aye.” He's unhappy, but he makes the adjustment quickly, and drops the ship flush to the side of the Star Destroyer. Defensive turrets swing round to follow their wake, and the wide drop of the main hangar looms larger and larger before them. “Sergeant?”

“Keep your heading.”

“But –”

“We're aiming for the hangar.”

“We're not going _in_ , are we?” His voice is sharp with alarm, but his hands are steady on the yoke, which Boil supposes must count for something, but he's too busy calculating distance and trajectory to ruminate on what.

“No,” he grits out. They're coming up fast on his target, and he's got one shot. “We're just closing the doors.”

He clenches his fist over the trigger, and lights up the delicate power generators positioned on either side of the bay doors. The ray shield flickers, and as the void of space rushes in, and the artificial atmosphere rushes out, the durasteel blast doors slam shut locking the fighter battalions safely inside.

While chaos erupts onboard the Imperial vessel, and pilots are frantically diverted to the smaller auxiliary hangers, Boil takes out the last two fighters to follow them up from planetside.

“There,” he announces. “That'll give us some breathing room. Now, move over and get to work on that hyperdrive.”

He shoves Korkie out of the captain's seat, the kid still entering code, and altering course away from the destroyer as Boil takes over.

“Careful,” he cautions, as Boil's heavy hand sends them veering liberally portside.

The kid slams his palm against the mid-airlock, and slips through the first seal, and the second, to access the main hyperdrive module in the back of the ship.

“Anytime, Korkie!” Boil shouts down the passage, and he hears the guns fire again, thrumming low beneath his feet.

“Anytime you want to do this yourself,” he calls back. He opens the outer casement to an organised weave of wires and cable. The power drive seems clean, so he carefully detaches the charge tower from its base, sliding out each plane to check for damage. The conduits still shine, and the effect channels are clear of any scoring or flare marks, and it doesn't look like there's anything fundamentally wrong with it. It's just new, and the installation hasn't been completed. He threads the filaments from the central shaft of the core chamber generator into the baseplate, and without the appropriate saudering-torch, is forced to slice manually into the lines, and hotwire the hyperdrive into operation. “I've got a bad feeling about this,” he mutters to himself, even while locking the tower to the base, and slotting them back into place behind its outer casing.

“Korkie?”

“Got it!” he shouts back, leaping over bulkheads, and locking the compartments behind him. He drops into the co-pilot's seat, sweat coursing from his temples, but refusing to give into the tremble he feels building in his hands. That can wait. “But we shouldn't try a jump of anything further than –”

Kenobi screams.

“ _Fierfek!”_

_“Shabla be'buir!”_

The ship rolls, and in the starboard viewport Boil sees fire flare and then die out in the vacuum of the black, but the damage is done and they start to spin.

“Let me, let me, let me,” Korkie shouts, tumbling into Boil to wrest back the controls. The Jedi's cries grow hoarse, and falter into choking sobs. His hands, gnarled and bloody cradle his head, and his chest surges in futile gasps.

“What the hell was that?” demands the clone.

The ship struggles level in time for another blast to strike them, sending them wending in the opposite direction. Boil grabs at the gunner controls, but can't get a lock on the pilot behind them.

“That's got to be a droid,” Korkie groans. “If they've fixed on our signal, we're stardust.”

“ _Anakin...”_

And though it's barely a whisper, Boil hears the name rushing in his head as though the General were still pressed close, his mouth against his ear. The realization leaves him cold, and terrified in a way he has never been before. Not even death, resplendent in her ebony cloak on countless battlefields, seeking out his brothers, and taking them one by one, prowling ever closer – not even she could raze him like this secret does.

“It's not a droid,” he says. “We need to jump _now!”_

He throws his hand over the shift-stick at the centre of the navpanel. Korkie's there too, holding him back,

“We can't!” he says. “It's only a patch, and without coordinates –”

“Kriff it,” Boil huffs. He pulls back Korkie's hand and slams the shaft forward. The stars inhale, hold their breath, and reach for them, pulling them into the uncanny whirl of hyperspace, blues and whites writhing over the empty space outside.

It's not a comfortable jump. The ship moans around them, not quite contained within the charge of the generator, and the velocity doesn't have a chance to equalize, keeping them pressed into their seats until alarms blare, and they drop out of hyperspace after only a couple minutes.

Korkie is on his feet first, reaching up to convert energy, and revert the charges of unionised particulators. Gradually, the blaring frenzy of the instrument panels are soothed, and the noise drops back into a decipherable influx of stern admonishments from the computing systems.

“That was incredibly idiotic,” Korkie snaps. “You can't just jump without knowing where you're going to land – even _Hutts_ know that!”

“We're alive, aren't we?”

“Thanks to the built-in failsafes,” Korkie grumbles. “Not your genius strategizing.”

Boil's not listening. He's out of his harness, and leaning over the general who has managed to claw and tear his own way free of the restraints, but is unable to escape the lethargy of trauma, folded over and crumpled at the waist. Boil eases him back as he recoils, retching from hyperspace sickness. Blue eyes drift hazily over their environment, struggling towards orientation and awareness.

“General, are you alright? Are you with us?”

“Cody?”

“No, sir,” the clone murmurs, settling the Jedi back against the seat, wiping his face, and brushing back his hair. “It's Boil. I'm here to take you home.”

Obi-Wan nods, his body urging sleep, but his mind pushing him towards comprehension. There's a furrow between his eyebrows, and his mouth runs in a strict and orderly line. Boil feels hope overrun him as the familiarity of his general's expression ignites a thousand memories, but a sharp gasp, and sudden flash of frightened eyes barely preface a surge of power, as an invisible force throws Boil against the opposite wall of the cockpit.

The Jedi lurches from his seat, plunging inelegantly to his knees, one hand held up between him and the clone, but his head hanging heavy with exhaustion, a final stand before inevitable defeat. Boil moves to recover himself, reaching forward, and Kenobi tenses, gritting his teeth. The overhead lights flicker, and the hum of electronics fall silent then come back, rows of code streaking green across screens.

“Whatever you touched, please don't,” Korkie demands, turning to his downed compatriots. But Boil's hands are not at all proximal to any of the more sensitive instruments, instead extended in open gesture urging calm, and peace.

“ _Udesii_ , General –”

“Traitor!” Obi-Wan spits, as the lights flicker again, and the ship echoes his accusation in the groans of metal and steel.

“No, no, no,” Korkie pleads, dropping down between the two. “Step back,” he says to Boil. “Or you're going to get us all killed.”

“He's injured –”

“Yes, thank you, I'm quite aware,” Korkie says. His accent is tight, and clipped but there's no real malice in the words, only barely restrained fear. “And he thinks you're responsible so if you'd be so good as to just...back off. For a minute. Let me try.”

Boil retreats, a few choices curses muttered under his breath. It's nothing personal, he knows, except that it is _entirely_ personal, and the General isn't wrong to fear him. The guilt he's worked so hard to chase down and destroy rears its head in its violent death throes and he feels it bite more deeply than it has since he first ran from Utapau in the wake of Order 66. He locks himself in the midcompartment, suspended between his general and the siren call of empty space, while Korkie takes it upon himself to negotiate a armistice.

“ _Su cuy'gar_ ,” he says, his voice gentle and assured. “ _Ner gai cuyir Kiorkicek Kryze. Vaabir gar partaylir ni?_ ”

One breath, then another, slower and deeper than the first. Korkie waits until Obi-Wan lifts his head, then reaches out to grasp the hand still upraised between them, wrapping his warm fingers around the icy ones of the Jedi.

“Korkie?” he breathes, in acute recognition. “ _Vaii cuyir gar ba'vodu?”_

“ _Bic cuyir shi ni, b'alor,_ ” Korkie whispers, and in that soft admission, Obi-Wan seems to comprehend years of grief, finally falling back into the merciless present with a civilized grace. He bows his head, and curls his shoulders over his knees, weeping silently. Korkie shuffles closer, clicking his tongue in sympathy, wrapping one arm around the trembling form, and pressing a kiss to the palm of the hand he still holds, cleaving it to his cheek as a reminder of his presence beside the Jedi. “ _A gar cuyir morut'yc jii.”_

 _“Kih'kairkiyc,”_ the Jedi sighs. _“Ki...airky...”_

 _“Ni cuy'ti gar,”_ says the boy. “ _Udes jii.”_ And as though his desires could manifest reality, Obi-Wan Kenobi sags in his arms, not unconscious, but deeply asleep.

* * *

“What about that one?” Boil suggests, jabbing a gloved finger at a speck on the navconsole.

Korkie brings up the planet briefing, before frowning, and brushing it aside. “Populated, but not compatible with human life, except with appropriate life support. Which we don't have.”

“That one?”

“Too far.”

“ _That_ one.”

“We should stop debating something that has already been settled by the dictates of rationality. _My_ suggestion is close, inhabited, and has the added bonus of a breathable atmosphere.”

“And so it's exactly where our enemies will look first.”

“They don't know how far we didn't get,” Korkie insists. “As far as they know, we've made an entirely justified retreat to the far reaches of the galaxy, as any sane fugitive of the Empire would have done.”

“Yeah, well, our present circumstances aren't exactly the result of a pre-meditated escape.”

“They certainly are not.”

Boil sighs, staring out the viewport. Korkie's proposed harbor is visible in the darkness, glowing blue and serene before him. It sits in its rotation, patient, unhurried, and waiting to receive them, and Boil thinks it seems rather smug in its assurance that they have no other options.

“I still think it's obvious. And dangerous,” he protests.

“It's not as obvious as you think,” Korkie counters. “It was a Separatist colony until just before the Republic fell. But, thanks to a well timed revolution, they managed to switch sides just in time to come out on the right side of the war.”

“Oh, so now it's an Imperial colony. Much better.”

“I'm saying there's unrest. There are enemies, but there are also allies.”

“Fine,” Boil says. He exhales, and drops his arms from their position barricaded against his chest. He reaches forward to revert the navconsole to its routing and coordination functions, punching in the numbers for the little blue planet hovering in the distance. “We'll do it your way. But for the record, I think this is a bad idea.”

Korkie hums in acknowledgment, grinning as he pushes the ship along its new course. “So noted,” he says. “But for the record, I think you're going to _love_ Stewjon.”

* * *

They land on the planet's darkside, as close to midnight as they can guess, optimistic that the cover of night will conceal their arrival from the more inquisitive of onlookers. This hope is dashed as they burn through the atmosphere, their damaged wing getting caught in the drag, and breaking off in carbonized chunks. Korkie's resumed cursing, and hauling back on the steering shaft, lifting the nose of the shuttle just enough to save them from hurtling through thick forests, which might be a relief except that the earth falls away below them giving way to open ocean.

“Oh, kriff,” he spits. “I'm really sorry, I botched this whole landing –”

Boil's braced beside him, hands gripping his armrests like claws, stiff and articulated into rigid, unbending lines.

“Why are you apologizing? Focus on the landing.”

“I _am_ focused,” Korkie says. “But I'd also like to clarify that this performance is not a fair reflection of my abilities, and –”

“Are we going to die? Is that what you're saying?”

Korkie throws him a horrified glance, briefly breaking his attention away from the rapidly approaching sea.

“No, of course not!” He says, aghast at the idea, and Boil hopes, just a little insulted by the very thought. “I just don't want you to get the idea that I'm some kind of reckless –”

“Kid, I don't care how we get down there, as long as we can get back up. Now, shut up, and take us in.”

He can see Korkie set his mouth in a sour twist of displeasure, but he keeps his eyes forward, and his hands steady. As the frothing spit of the breaking waves becomes visible, he keys the release codes into the console. A latch flips open, and Korkie slides a sweaty hand into the handle descending from above.

“Alright, this is going to be rough. And please,” he adds, a plea in his voice and pinched brows. “Don't let's talk about this after it's all over.”

“Whatever you say, kid,” Boil grunts.

Korkie yanks the handle, and there's a sudden lurch as the docking clamps release, and the cockpit wrests itself free of the shuttle's crippled weight.

“It's humiliating enough as it is,” the young pilot mutters.

The vibrating stops, the deafening noise declines into silence, and even gravity frees them for a moment, their steep descent leveling off into a controlled glide. They still hit the water with enough impact to startle Kenobi awake, and for Boil to chip a tooth where his top jaw surprises his bottom with a rapid acquaintance, but they are all alive, and mostly in one piece. They sit there, breathing hard, until Korkie, his knees shaking, fumbles out of his harness and wobbles his way to the rear of the cockpit.

“I'm going to – to rewire the distress beacon for limited range, broadband,” he says, his tongue sticking to the dry planes of his mouth. “Back in a minute.”

He hauls open a panel of roofing, the emergency exit still a manual operation, and clambers out to the surface of the pod, vanishing into the dark. It's a calm night, and the stars peer at them curiously, their faces peeking in and out of the exit's metal frame, the waves rolling gently beneath them, cradling them in their evanescent embrace.

Obi-Wan similarly occupies his hands, his fingertips steepled against his brow, his eyes closed, thinking, or else gathering himself to face another impossible foe.

“General?” Boil's voice is soft; compassionate. He wants to reach, but he instead withholds, folding his arms against his chest, curling his fingers over his empty palms.

His general sighs.

“You were on Utapau?” he asks.

Boil will not do him the dishonor of hesitating. “Yes,” he says.

Obi-Wan nods. Inhales. Exhales.

“Did you know?”

“No, sir,” he says. “The orders came from the Chancellor, and he triggered – there was a chip – inside our heads. We had no choice, we could only obey. The Jedi –”

“About _Anakin_ ,” Obi-Wan whispers, the name carries like a ghost from his mouth, a breath away from erasure and absence. It twists about the room, haunting the shadows, and lifting the hair on Boil's neck.

“No,” he swears. “Not that. We never knew about that.”

Obi-Wan nods, then chokes. Boil can see the tendons of his neck flex, but the Jedi lifts his chin, and swallows his grief, turning friendly, glassy eyes on the clone.

“Whatever's happened, Boil, whatever you've had to do, I'm glad to know you've made it. I'm glad you've found your freedom, and I'm very glad you're here with me,” he says, smiling, and somehow it's sincere.

* * *

They're pulled out the ocean just as the sun begins to rise. A small military contingent draws close in hovercrafts, and Korkie ducks his head back inside to warn his companions of their approach. He's pale, and shivering, having spent the better part of the night perched on the hull, and he feels like some ancient _woor'senar_ crouched on a bitter throne of stone, waiting for the _sho'jaolli_ fish to swim close, seeking the shade of the hunter's body and falling into his trap. These fish, however, are significantly less ignorant than their wild counterparts, and he tells the clone that when he checks the charge of his pilfered rifle, and adjusts his armor.

“We should surrender,” he says, blood pooling in his upturned head, and flooding his cheeks with red. “They don't have any quarrel with us, so let's not give them one.”

Boil is less than amiable in his reply.

“You're hanging off the remains of a stolen ship, carrying a rogue trooper, and the galaxy's most wanted traitor. I think they'll come up with a quarrel pretty quickly.”

But Obi-Wan sees the wisdom in Korkie's caution, and takes his side. Boil thinks he shouldn't be surprised but it's frustrating to have his control wrested so efficiently from his hands. The Jedi stands upright, projecting a confidence his body fails to support, as he keeps a firm grip on the chair, his weight shifted slightly against it, worrying Boil far more than any adjustments to the chain of command.

“Korkie's right,” he says. “But we do have one advantage: they don't know who we are.”

It follows then, in seconds, that Boil's stripped down to his blacks, and Obi-Wan to his base tunics. The Jedi's a slimmer build than Boil – more so now, after so many peripatetic months of neglect – and the armor hangs from him awkwardly. He grins at the clone as he pulls the bucket down over his head, the polarised lenses falling low. Tilting his head back to facilitate a better view, the prongs of the mutilated vent glint in complement to the general's bared teeth.

“Come now, Boil, get dressed. You do cut a rather fetching figure, but it's hardly appropriate to greet our rescuers in little more than your smallclothes. We haven't even been introduced, yet.”

Boil grumbles and complains, but yanks Obi-Wans clothing into an acceptable approximation of dress. He rolls up the wide sleeves of the outer tunic, until they're tight above his elbow, his black base layer visible, and the tabards he lets hang loose over his shoulders, using the sash as a wrap for his head. He looks about as different from a Jedi as it is possible to be, and Obi-Wan's expression wavers between amusement and distaste for the treatment of his uniform.

“It's definitely unique,” he says. “Ah, well, _beware the fashion of Vanity, for she wears shoes of glass._ So says Master Seva. Although, he said nothing of crystalline robes.”

“Shall we?” Korkie prompts, reaching down a hand to assist.

“Let's just get this over with.” With one last adjustment to his borrowed clothes, Boil shuffles over to the exit, ushering the Jedi towards the durasteel ladder.

“Out of curiosity,” Obi-Wan says, acknowledging Boil's offer of assistance by brushing it aside, and stepping onto the lower rung, still breathless from their brief efforts at subterfuge. “What kind of welcome might we be expecting?”

Boil looks at Korkie, but the kid's not much help, ducking back out of sight to hail their captors. He can hear him shout something, the civil charm of his voice ringing out and mingling with the sun and surf beyond their little capsule. Boil sighs. If there was a briefing for this mission, he certainly didn't receive it. Paperwork must've gotten lost. As far as Boil's concerned, no plan survives contact with the enemy.

“In my experience, Sir,” he says, watching that Kenobi's grip doesn't falter, “It's best to prepare for blasters, but hope for ambassadors.

“Stars,” Obi-Wan mutters, hauling himself upwards, “I'd always rather thought it was the other way round.”

With no small effort, and a very impressive restraint from an overly solicitious clone, the two men clamber into the open air, stumbling to their feet on the rocking metal spine of the drowned ship. The small detachment of locals attending to their rescue are predictably suited in Imperial grays, but their uniforms are trimmed in flashes of iridescent blues and greens, their decorations unfamiliar to the eyes of the Grand Army veterans who regard them warily. They attach cables, and ropes, tying their crafts to the cockpit, and extending a ramp towards the roof of the shuttle, which Korkie secures with a laugh, and a cheery salutation of thanks.

It's only a few minutes before they're hustled onto the small, retrieval craft, wrapped in blankets, and plied with ration bars, and water – both of which are refused by Boil, and the General, but are eagerly devoured by Korkie. They're given no information, nor any offer of medical assistance, but are hurried onto another, larger craft moored a few hundred yards away. This flagship is in the native fashion, with sharp fins, and real wood detailing, but its colors are no more encouraging than the uniforms had been. Boil tries to keep track of their passage, craning his head to catch glimpses of light that might be exits which become more infrequent and more convoluted as they're carried deeper into the ship before finally arriving at the bridge.

With only a single officer as an escort, they're brought to the commanding officer. He's a short man, with thin, gray hair, and elaborate whiskers who observes their entrance and their introduction with a suspicious and long-suffering eye. He studies them for a moment, his posture tense, and expectant, but the three rather salt-streaked waifs are surprisingly wise enough to hold their tongues. The man sighs, rubs a hand over his brow, and says, in a voice laden with disappointment, “ _Haijo_ , would you be so good as to fetch us Kenobi?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you want some translations? Here they are, in any case:
> 
> MANDO'A  
> Udesii... take it easy.  
> "Ner vod laam'ja ner oyay"... "My brother above my life"  
> "Nu vaabir chaabar te aru'e; akaanir kaysh"... "Don't fear the enemy; fight him."  
> "Mirdir be bic ti ner'sat"... "Remember it with pride."  
> "Shabla be'buir!”... Mother.........of pearl...  
> "Su cuy'gar. Ner gai cuyir Kiorkicek Kryze. Vaabir gar partaylir ni?”... "Hello there. My name is Kiorkicek Kryze. Do you remember me?"  
> “Vaii cuyir gar ba'vodu?”... "Where is your aunt?"  
> "“Bic cuyir shi ni, b'alor. A gar cuyir morut'yc jii"... It's only me, captain. You're safe, now.  
> "Kih'kairkiyc"... "Little desperate heart" An endearment for a child, and also coincidentally (?) the etymological roots of Korkie's name (Kiorkicek). By itself, "kairkiyc" means a desperate, painful love for someone (per. the Supplemental Dictionary by Izzerslololol et al.)  
> "Ni cuy'ti gar"... "I'm with you." ie. I've got you, etc.  
> woor'senar... A big ocean bird of prey, like an albatross or pelican of Mandalore.  
> sho'jaolli... surface feeding fish


	6. pitat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Obi-Wan."
> 
> They stood, mere paces away from a second and final parting. He bowed his head, bereft of words.
> 
> Ue took his hands in hers. "I make no claim upon you, for I know you cannot and must not be so burdened. But hear me: if ever, for whatever cause, you have need of me, of us…. I will give without expectation of return."
> 
> His words cleaved hoarsely to his throat, as though unwilling to be cast into irrevocable speech. "I have never thanked you…. for giving me life, twice over."
> 
> "There is no need. But will you ask, will you call upon me, if desperate need arise?"
> 
> He held her hands, clinging. Not clinging.
> 
> "Promise me, daiji-aso."
> 
> It was the only gift he could bestow. "You have my word."
> 
> \- Legacy II, ruth baulding

“ _But Death would not her happy escort be,  
__For in the restless, raging, bounding main,  
A fisherman redeemed her from the sea  
And coaxed that fire alight in her again.”  
_

_-_ The Forlorn Queen, Myth of the Ancient Naboo

* * *

The sun rises red over the open plains, and she feels in her heart – in her bones, deeply – that there is something in it. She's never truly been a farmer, but over the years she has found herself believing in the accumulated power of superstitions so frequently chorused. _Blood at dawn, death at dusk._ The wind passes over her with the shiver of a thought, and she draws her slender arms closer about her to ward off the chill. The sky is saturated with color, insistent in its ominous foresight. She tips her head back taking in the firmament of clouds, the crimson, and the rose, and breathes in the cool morning air, bracing herself.

The path back to the house is cut deep, marking the passage of many feet and many years, and even though there is a dire warning in the wind and the sky, she wanders. Grasses, knee-high and woad, wave as she passes, gossiping amongst themselves, and the starry heads of small white flowers peek through to catch a glimpse of her before bashfully darting out of sight behind the swaying stalks lest she see them and stop to admire them openly. Aware of their timidity, she does not, though she smiles to herself, and lets the tips of her fingers trail over the braver blooms that line the path.

Her legs ache as the lane continues upwards in a steady rise, but only in the pleasant way of leisurely exertion – more effort, certainly, than when she was young, but there is still an eagerness to her step, still an openness to her face, even if the recent years have done their best to cripple her.

One son, gone. A scholar. An idealist. A revolutionary. Kashi-Tan. He'd been such a sweet-natured child. Such an easy youth. But also so rigidly moral and righteous that he could not help but cause upset, even as he brought her _such_ pride. To know your child could love something so fiercely as to die for it was to see the ferocity of your own love unleashed. It was devastating, and terrific, and only understood by the brave. And because it was so powerful, it was dangerous. And because it was dangerous, it was destroyed.

Iko-Re was too clever for death by half. The youngest of his brothers, he was insolent and sly, and hid his passion beneath their iridescent cloak. He could smile, and nod, and reply with lips already laughing at the folly of their betters. Iko-Re and Kashi-Tan had forever been at odds. The elder so serious, and the other so seldom serious at all. Of course, he'd floundered in his teenage years, but the Corps had brought him direction, and structure when he'd needed it most. Then, war; the outbreak of which had sharpened him, and turned his cleverness to cunning. More often than not, his mother found herself at a loss for what he was thinking, but for all that, she knew he felt things deeply.

The master of the estate was not her child, but no less her son, the adopted cousin of her in-laws, and the heir of her late husband. He'd always felt the burden of that responsibility: the tenant farmers he harbored, the livelihoods he sustained, the families he supported, the land he oversaw. The lives he protected. As one of the Stewardship's preeminent landholders, he had a duty of care to those who worked his fields, and a duty of representation in their parliament. Though slow to speak, and cautious by nature, Daijon Kenobi had developed a reputation for being a fair man, and a stoic one – who knew best when to speak, and when not. People followed him. Depended on him. He had seen them through war, first civil and then galactic, and played both sides. His allegiance was to his people, and for now, his people were citizens of the Empire. Atasowen. The last. Except for...

Ue sighs, wilting with the grass, and the swaying trees. She is not one given to brooding, allowing herself only these few brief moments at dawn to think of all the things she cannot change. The path brings her to a gate burdened with a heavy lock, and beyond it, a neatly kept courtyard. She slips inside, and wipes her hands of the grit on her skirt, wipes her mind of melancholy thoughts. There are lights coming on in the house. Too many, too early in the day, and she knows that Iko-Re must be home. She bends her head, murmurs a prayer to an unseen god, and steps back inside with a smile on her face.

* * *

Iko-Re is no stranger to being called to account before his betters, but it is a rare day when he feels answerable to his subordinates. Not that he'd ever tell _Adori_ Shio he considered him such, and in truth, more often than not, a single skeptical glance from his first officer would have Iko reconsidering even the simplest order for hours. But according to the customs and traditions of his office, technically, he outranks Shio, and technically, the older man with the impeccable moustache cannot make him feel at all guilty about the fact that a boy, a Mandalorian, and a clone masquerading as some sort of high concourse Coruscanti fashionista judging by the creatively wrapped robes he sported have somehow manifested themselves on his bridge. It was not his blunder that had seen them plunged into sea in the cockpit of an Imperial shuttle decidedly not their own, it was not his fault that the kid happened to look exactly like his elder brother, and if Kashi-Tan had died with a secret of this magnitude to confess, it's definitely not his responsibility to have to explain it to his mother. Iko fumes. This is _so_ like Kashi. Always taking the praise, and leaving Iko with the trouble. Such a trustworthy, reliable sort – no one would ever have expected _this_ from Kashi _._ From Iko, sure. But Kashi? Not perfect Kashi-Tan. Which is why Iko knows, he just _knows:_ he is somehow going to be blamed for this. He can already see the long-suffering chagrin, and disappointment carving itself into the furrows of Shio's face. _Oh, kriff,_ Iko thinks. His mother is going to be so _disappointed._

 _But,_ he considers, squaring his shoulders and conjuring that curious smirk that leaves even the most seasoned generals slightly baffled in his presence, _Shio is not going to get the better of him this time._

He gives his guests another appraising glance, raising a brow as though he sees nothing of particular interest about them, and turns to the lieutenant who had first summoned him. “ _Haijo_ ,” he says. “Please escort our new friends to my stateroom. Give them access codes to the fresher, see the quartermaster about clean clothes, and have the galley send up food for four. With dessert.”

The young officer clicks his heels smartly. “ _Dai_ ,” he says.

From the way Shio tilts his head, and purses his lips, leaving his facial hair to convulse in displeasure, Iko can tell he's just aching to question him, and confirm all his most outrageous hypotheses. Iko just nods, folding his hands behind his back, and bestowing upon the rest of the bridge and its crew a slow and reproachful survey. “Is that all, Shio?”

The shorter man draws himself up to formal attention.

“Yes, _Nika,”_ he says, with all due respect.

“Well, then,” Iko says. “As you were.”

He favors his second in command with a wink, then turns on his heel and proceeds from the room at a measured pace. There is no alarm in his steps as he perambulates down corridors, and passageways. His gait is loose, and his bearing professional. He is patient. He takes his time, and is careful to incite no disquiet in those he passes. This is his ship, these are his _daijohei._ He is in no rush, and he is completely in control.

The same cannot be said for his guests.

His quarters,when he arrives there, are in a state of complete disarray. It's impressive work for such a comparatively short span of time. Furniture is tipped, his bedroom has been tossed – linens and cushions discarded near the fresher. The lights flicker. The clone is hovering over the Mandalorian who seems to have collapsed atop the little table below the wide transparisteel viewport, scattering datapads, and small, personal keepsakes to the ground; a pressed flower, the keyfob to an old swoop-bike, a family holoimage – just little, personal things, the last of which has cracked in its descent. The boy, Kashi's little solecism, is standing just inside the door, holding a handful of wires, and a thin piece of metal likely pilfered from the decorative work on a chair. The access console is sparking traitorously, and all of them have the grace to look slightly abashed at Iko-Re's presence. Except the Mandalorian. Iko suspects that even without his helmet, he'd likely be too unconscious to express any sort of embarrassment for the situation.

He ducks back into the hall for just a moment.

“ _Haijo,_ that will be all. You may return to your post,” he says quite calmly to the faithful lieutenant who has posted himself just outside the entrance. Iko moves to go back inside, but thinks better of it, the limp, golden form prompting him to make one more request of the officer. “Oh, and send medical.” He grins. “Just in case.”

The man nods, too green to question orders, and scurries off. Iko steps back inside, the door sliding shut behind him, and waits.

Though they may be a little nonplussed at being so caught out, none of the culprits seem particularly forthcoming, so Iko sighs, his rank slipping from his shoulders, as he raises his hand to his forehead, and tries to press some sanity back into his brain.

“Alright,” he says, first to the clone. “Let's get him on the _kline_ , and then you, Kashi- _aso,_ ” he says, pointing a finger at Korkie, still hovering guiltily at the door, “Can tell me exactly how you think we ought to go about explaining things to my mother.”

He leans down to assist the beswathed clone, grabbing the Mandalorian by his feet, while the clone cradles him beneath his shoulders. The low, cushioned bench is close enough that they manage to shift the unconscious man without much jostling or discomfort, and Iko has breath to expend on the boy still eyeing the door as if calculating the odds on a successful escape.

Iko grunts, putting an end to that thought with a clear directive to the boy. “Also, put my entrance console back together, _aso_ – I don't want to give engineering an excuse to submit another formal complaint about my careless use of equipment. The requisition paperwork is a nightmare.”

Thus ordered, Korkie drops the detritus in his hands, and in mutinous defiance, races over to assist in clearing the bench of excess cushions, and the holo Iko had abandoned there the night before. He holds his hands out, lest someone's grip slip, and the captain or the clone deposit their burden with less than the utmost care, but that does not happen, and the Mandalorian is laid gently upon the _kline_ , the clone tilting his head to ease the angle of his neck into a more comfortable position.

Care is something Iko is used to providing. With so many soldiers counting on him, and so many being sacrificed in active battle, it is no longer something he hesitates over. In his younger days, the sight of blood, or an enemy made fragile and exposed to his will had frightened him to inaction, but now, he leans into mercy before anything else, and his hands are soft in their assessment. He peels off the vambraces while the clone speaks quietly, and quickly to the boy, and finding no obvious pulse beneath the wet, clinging folds of the filthy base layer, moves upwards to the man's head, reaching for the helmet to gain access to his neck.

It's too late for the clone, or the boy to prevent the final layer of disguise from toppling from its tenuous perch, the dome clattering to the floor in the same instant Iko gasps. The pale face is drawn with illness and exhaustion, freckles standing out like constellations depicting a personal mythology of suffering. Blood, and dirt cake an unkempt beard and trace patterns in tangled hair, but Iko knows this face.

Before he can utter a word of surprise, or gather the wherewithal to demand an explanation, the clone is on top of him, driving him to the floor, one arm at his throat, and sitting astride him, pinning Iko's hands beneath his knees.

“Ow,” he groans, protesting the weight and the completely unnecessary display of force. “Get off of me.”

“You will not touch him,” the clone growls.

“You've got some strange ideas about me, soldier,” Iko grunts out, straining and twisting against the choking hold. “I have no desire to get a leg over on my _brother._ ”

The clone doesn't look surprised, but neither does he look convinced. There are black spots flickering in the periphery of Iko's vision, his fingers are going numb, and he's beginning to regret being so accommodating. Maybe he'll withhold that dessert he'd ordered for his guests, after all.

“Sergeant Boil,” the boy says, drawing the clone's attention, but he is too experienced to leave any opening for Iko to exploit. So instead, Iko just goes limp, and waits for his attacker to accept his surrender with a gentlemanly grace.

Yet, it is not his submission that draws the clone away from him, but rather the false Mandalorian's return to consciousness. He moans softly, a clandestine confession of discomfort, which all assembled have heard, and whether or not they realise it, they are all unified in their desire to ease it.

The boy kneels beside him, and the resemblance is striking. Even the clone must see it, because he spares Iko, still prone on the floor, a glance riddled with deep lines of inchoate understanding before he moves to join the boy, his hand tracing the brow of his injured companion, whispering “General,” in tones of reverence that even Iko can hear.

He rolls upright, shaking feeling back into his bruised extremities, and smoothing his hair back into respectability, along with his rumpled uniform. The gray jacket is tugged down, and the peaked cap so rudely dislodged is returned to its mahogany throne. Iko is a captain of the Stewardship of Terajon under the rule of the Galactic Empire, and he'll be damned if he doesn't at least look the part – even if he is seriously contemplating outright treason as a viable response to this situation. He strides to the fresher, filling a glass with water, and before he has returned to his brother's side, he is no longer contemplating treachery. He's committed to it.

* * *

Kiorkicek Kryze is not one of those people who finds himself frequently at a loss for words. For him, words have always been a sort of shield, a protection from ignorance and loss, a defense against discovery. If you can keep talking, keep deflecting, keep excusing, and negotiating, eventually, you can find yourself a way out of any desperate situation you may encounter.

In fairness, growing up his most desperate encounters typically included outraged instructors, or aggrieved governesses, with the occasional incensed officer thrown in for good measure. His worst offenses garnered the displeasure of the Duchess, but she was so good, and so sad that Korkie did his level best to make her smile more often than he made her frown. That, thankfully, came easily to him, though it was many years before he understood why, and several more before he understood why he must refer to his aunt as his aunt, and his mother as his aunt as well. But he knew that the peace of Mandalore was dearly bought with much sacrifice, and both his parents were born warriors. So, too, was he.

But he had never known an uncle. And his mother had never spoken of one.

Yet this man who looks like his father is rolling his eyes, and casting expressions of mingled amusement and dismay and when he hands him a glass of water, and says, “You're not Kashi-Tan's kid at all, are you?” Korkie doesn't know what to say.

He knows who his father is. He just has no idea who Kashi-Tan is, or why an Imperial officer is propping General Kenobi up with tenderness, speaking to him with biting sarcasm, scolding him, while Korkie attempts to coax a few sips of water between parched lips.

“Ama is going to be so upset with you, you know,” the captain says. “To show up like _this?_ And I won't even bother to guess what 'Owen will have to say, but if you track mud and water over his carpets you will be dusted. I speak from experience. Kark, Obi-Wan – you look like _kosu._ ”

The General of the Grand Army of the Republic looks at the Imperial Captain, and smiles, eyes dropping closed in the cradle of his brother's arms.

“Of course, Iko,” he murmurs. “You would know.”

  
  


They exit the ship with far greater ease than Korkie had anticipated, comfortably dry, fed, and dressed in the soft blue medical garb of the navy. He's given a long coat, lined in down, and embroidered with a family crest he doesn't recognise. He reasons, logically, it must mean _Kenobi._

Though sergeant Boil and Master Kenobi had stayed confined to the captain's quarters, Korkie had been sent on a tour of the ship, and paraded before the curious and occasionally scandalised crew of _The Osu're._ He'd been welcomed in the commissary, and plied with drinks and sweets; the bridge crew regarded him with respect, most of them happy to explain the intricacies of their assignments, although the first officer certainly sighed a lot and loudly when Korkie asked a question of him specifically.

He wasn't ignorant of the intention behind this: Captain Kenobi was establishing an alibi, and all of his crew were being made unknowingly complicit, quite happy to play their part to perfect distraction. Three fugitives were far more dangerous and far less exciting than the revelation of a scandalous youthful indiscretion. Whether he was Iko's son, or Kashi's was not made clear, and when an officer mustered up the courage to ask, Korkie hedged until Iko smiled like a _felix_ and remind the officer of their rank.

Then, just before they reach port, he hugs Korkie in the corridor outside his rooms, and that is about the most baffling thing Korkie has experienced on this whole confounding venture. Mandalorians were not, by nature, a very tactile people, and he wishes for the protective embrace of _beskar'gam_ instead of the arms of this familiar stranger.

Sergeant Boil looks as uncomfortable as Korkie feels, fretting with the hems and folds of his new clothes more than he did while in the Jedi's. Obi-Wan, for his part, doesn't fuss much beyond good-naturedly griping at Iko-Re as he's assisted down the ramp, and into a waiting speeder still dressed in his borrowed armor, his face still shielded from view. Not that anyone's looking at him, the rest of the crew much too preoccupied in giving Korkie an enthusiastic send off, and many fond farewells. He's offered personal comm signals, and holobooks, desserts, and fresh fruit – _muja_ – Shio assures him, and Korkie nods as though that means anything to him. By the time he escapes the crush, the others are all safely ensconced in the speeder. Boil rolls his eyes, and throws the door open to allow Korkie entrance, his arms too overladen with gifts to do it himself.

“You can't deny it, Obi,” Iko-Re says at the helm of the cruiser. “The Kenobi charm is a weapon unto itself.”

Korkie is relieved when his father, still reeling from exhaustion and injury, seems to miss the point entirely, and laughingly replies to his brother, saying, “I'm afraid, Iko-Re, that the success of our escape cannot be entirely attributed to your own questionable appeal.”

Iko doesn't smile in return, but frowns at his brother, head nodding, and already drifting towards slumber, before turning his eyes back to the road. Korkie shifts his souvenirs, and Boil mutters from the back seat beside him.

“Kriffing hells,” he says. “What a karking mess.”

  
  


They arrive at a charmingly situated domicile, perched delicately at the top of a shallow rise. Before it, there are open fields thick with uncut grass, and tiny flowers that look like stars. Fruit trees grown in uniform rows flank one side of the house, while green and golden fields race out towards the horizon from the other. In the late hours of the dawn, the sun burns red, a bloody eye rising above its terrestrial berth, and the wind blows cool and heavy with rain.

Iko-Re guides the speeder through a security fence, remotely activated in recognition of his arrival, and he kills the engine late, stopping the craft as close to the front entrance as possible. He calls out to the groundskeeper, huffing up the lane behind them from the direction of the gate, and the commotion of their arrival begins to rouse the rest of the household, too. Lights come on upstairs, then downstairs. Voices can be heard. A baby cries.

“It's me! It's only me,” Iko-Re shouts, careless of the hour. “Hello, 'Owen!”

A man, hair dark like Iko's but of a larger stature, and with a stronger jaw barrels out the door, clad in sleeping pants, and a thin nightrobe.

“Iko-Re, have you no respect for anyone not in uniform?”

“And not even then,” the younger man assures him. “Is Ama here? I think she'll be very pleased – I've brought some old friends for morning meal. And some new!”

Obi-Wan totters forward from the speeder, the helmet lodged under his arm.

“Hello, 'Owen,” he says. “I do hope you'll pardon the hour, but I'm afraid we were rather pressed for time.”

“Are you insane?” 'Owen growls. He casts a fierce glance back at the house to ascertain if he's been followed but everyone else has remained inside, still sleepy and uncertain. The groundskeeper he dismisses with a curt wave, and the five men are left alone to their conference. Of course, they're being watched from windows, but the fewer people made privy to the details of proximity, the better. “You can't be here,” he hisses at Obi-Wan.

The General shrinks, bracing himself against the speeder with a hand behind his back.

“'Owen, I know –”

“No, you know nothing. I am not speaking to you.” He turns his back to the beleaguered Jedi, leaving Boil to draw up beside him as support. He speaks softly, pressing more water into Obi-Wan's hands while 'Owen berates a thoroughly undaunted Iko-Re.

“You know the price of betrayal,” he says. “If they even _suspect_ – we're under enough suspicion as it is, after father –” He hesitates, throwing a glance at the three strays, before grabbing his brother by the elbow, and leaning deeper into Iko-Re's space. “It is not honorable to betray our Emperor –”

“Oh, _kriff_ honor,” Iko bites. “You've played more sides than a Bothan whore.”

'Owen tenses.

“We _must_ maintain the Empire's trust. You know what I've had to promise, what we've had to suffer for this security, brother. You've suffered, too, don't think that I don't see it. But I have a duty to more than just my heart. Think of Kashi-Tan.”

“I do,” Iko says. “He would come to you now, as I have done.”

“That is not the lesson we must take from him. I am not so naive as to think I can act upon ideals and principles when there are more lives than my own at stake. Not now.”

“Then when?” Iko asks. “Our brother kept his silence for us, once. You'll honor our father, our mother, Kashi-Tan, and yourself to keep yours now.”

Their gazes lock and hold, testing for weakness of conviction, and yet finding none. Only a voice, calling from the depths of the house breaks their stand off.

“Iko-Re? Is that you? So early, _daiji-aso_ , your brother will –”

It's a woman, her voice high and melodic, but wavering slightly with age or sorrow, Korkie cannot tell, until she appears in the doorway, and freezes, taking in the scene before her: 'Owen's anger, Iko-Re's defiance, a stranger, a boy who looks like...and...

“ _Obi-Wan_ ,” she breathes. Then she's running, racing over the gravel drive, the stones chattering with the exhilaration of her steps, until she's before the Jedi, holding herself back, her arms stiff at her sides, wanting but not reaching for her son.

“ _Ama,”_ he whispers. “I came. Just like I promised.”

And then he's in her arms, and she's pulling his head into her shoulder, carding her fingers through his dull and dusty hair.

'Owen relinquishes his grip on Iko's arm, and steps back.

“Three days,” he says. “That's all we can risk.”

Iko-Re nods, signaling to Korkie, who clambers out of the speeder inelegantly, still weighed down with remembrances. He glances at Boil, and at the Jedi still held in his mother's arms, uncertain of who to look to for guidance in the wake of this fraught exchange. The clone juts his chin in the direction of Iko-Re, who holds his arm wide in encouragement, ushering the two towards the confines of the house, and 'Owen, doing his best to smile though his expression is twisted with concern.

“Welcome,” he says, sincere, though deeply vexed. “And Obi,” he adds. “It _is_ good to see you, little brother.”

  
  


Korkie stands in the middle of the _adige_ at a complete loss for what to do. He holds the muja fruit that Shio gave to him, uncertain but reassured by Ue that they are delicious, and Master Kenobi's favorite, and he wavers between eating it himself – as is obviously expected – or saving it for the Jedi later.

He rolls the fruit over in his hand. The skin is soft, the rind having been peeled away, and the flesh is plump and ripe with sticky, sweet juices. But no one else is eating, and he doesn't want to be rude. Surely, he ought to be helping.

Instead, it seems he's been summarily dismissed from his post. Iko-Re and 'Owen disappeared into some inner sanctum after the chaos of their arrival had been soothed. The former had made some request for a drink declaring it was much later in the day than his chrono claimed, and the latter had been persuaded to join him once his wife and child were calmed and sent back to bed. He'd offered to help Boil with seeing to Master Kenobi, but the clone had brushed him aside, declaring the housekeeper's assistance was more than sufficient, and together they'd bustled the General off to a chamber down the hall with drawn curtains, and a heavy door.

Ue smiles at him. She has sprinkled the countertop with flour, and is deeply working a dense sweet bread into shape, meant for a late first meal, or early second. She doesn't press him for answers, or ask any questions, but she must read his unease in the shuffling of his feet, and the wary looks he throws around the room, his eyes alighting on many strange objects, but never resting long enough to study them.

“Sit,” she says, all kindness. She gestures to a high stool near the oven, and Korkie obediently hoists himself atop it. His feet dangle well above the floor, and he tries not to feel young, and silly though his legs swing back and forth despite himself.

Ue gestures to the fruit he holds.

“Taste it,” she says. “I promise you'll like it. And just in case you do, there's plenty more where that came from.”

Korkie bites his lip, contemplating the fruit.

“Did you see the orchards coming in?” she asks, stretching the dough, then rolling it back again. “Those are all muja trees. Acres of them. I remember some of those trees being not much taller than my children, years ago, when they used to play in them, all seedlings together. And in the fields. Obi-Wan, well, of course, he was quite, quite young, but he used to hide in the long grass, waiting for 'Owen to find him. But 'Owen, who was a fair bit older, would tire of always losing a children's game, so more often than not it was I who would discover him, crouched amidst the reeds, prodding at _ili-maus_ nests, or asleep. Or sometimes,” she says, a wicked gleam in her eye as though she's divulging a great weakness, “When he insisted on remaining elusive, we would tempt him back to the house with fresh baked muja muffins.” Ue laughs then, and Korkie smiles, raising a portion of fruit to his lips.

“Weren't you ever frightened?” he asks. “When he was lost?”

Ue nods, and turns back to her work, kneading and rolling and spreading and shaping. A thin sheen of sweat decorates the edge of her brow, glimmering at her hairline in places where the sunlight finds her. “Always,” she agrees. “But it happened so often, and he was always such a – a special child, that I suppose we...well, we coped. One cannot panic over every minor catastrophe, and he always came home in the end.”

The muja is sweet on his tongue, the juice viscous, and the flesh pleasantly dense, packed around a small pit. He swallows one piece, then breaks off another.

“When did you take him to the Jedi?” he asks.

Ue frowns, and where there was sweetness, he now finds the flavor has turned sour. The fruit grows leaden on Korkie's tongue, and he fights to swallow it down, but Ue doesn't scold him for his presumption. Instead, she lets the question settle in her mind, using the silence between them to place the dough in a baking tin, letting it rest for a moment beneath a damp cloth. She rinses her hands, and comes to sit across from Korkie on another stool, and he's gratified to see her own feet dangling. She steals a piece of muja from between his fingers, and chews on it thoughtfully.

“We didn't take him to them,” she says. “They came to us. Truly, he was such a holy terror I was relieved to be rid of him. I'm sure you can imagine from experience.”

Korkie grins at her, claiming the next piece for himself, though Ue makes a brief attempt to snatch it from him.

“Oh, I know,” he says. “My mother always said he –” He falls silent again. For a moment, he'd allowed himself to feel comfortable, to feel welcomed, and secure. But that isn't true. They are here for three days only. His mother is dead, his father doesn't know him, and this woman who would be his grandmother – baking bread, sharing treats, and telling stories – she is a stranger. Korkie feels sick. He bites his lip, and grinds a small piece of muja between his fingers, feeling the seeds roll and stick.

Ue sighs. She leans forward. There is still more than an arm's length between them, but she bridges that gap with a warm hand on his knee.

“I imagine your mother was very beautiful,” she says. “I can see her in your nose, your mouth, your chin. The way you conduct yourself – you're quite an elegant young man. I'm certain she would be very proud of you.”

He nods, but says nothing, eyes misting over. She tilts his chin up, not leaving him to sit alone with his sorrow, and he can't quite help the tear that spills over the brink of his lashes. His grandmother smiles, and wipes it away.

“But do you know,” she says. “Your eyes are so like your father's?”

“I know,” he replies. “But I'm afraid he doesn't. It is against the Jedi Code to – and my mother, she – they never...She would not have him forsake his duty for the consequence of a single moment.”

“You are not a consequence, or a punishment, _aso-aso_ ,” she murmurs. “And I don't see that any parent could hold you any less than the very best of all beloved things.”

* * *

Force exhaustion is a terrible, nagging companion. It's the long siege of a mighty fortress that first leads with physical exhaustion, easy enough to battle alone, but more difficult to counter when accompanied by restlessness, and a quiet, growing apathy. Nights become fraught with vivid dreams of death, and loss, and inescapable destinies that chase even shallow slumber from its den. Days are spent avoiding thought, and shaking off the icy, grasping hands of loneliness and grief. Hunger is welcomed at first, as a distraction, and when it leaves it takes all other feeling with it as though spiteful of its reception. But Obi-Wan knows it is better to be numb than to be overwhelmed with the tidal waves of guilt.

The body wilts, the internal organs fighting to regulate base functions, discarding the unnecessary pursuits of higher level cognition, of anything beyond the merest survival. Dehydration, starvation, and fatigue conspire to reduce the capacity for thought, or feeling, or comprehension. A Jedi, if he is skilled enough, may compensate by flooding his corporeal vessel with the light of the Force, shoring up weakness, and bolstering reserves. But that too, requires energy and effort, and eventually, a Jedi, if he is foolish enough, may burn himself out, like kindling catching flame once all the nourishment of life has abandoned it.

The recovery from such magnificent folly is extensive, and requires more than the dedicated rest of three days. But three days is all they have been granted by the master of the estate, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is grateful for that.

He walks through the pastures beyond the house, mindful not to go too far lest Boil be tempted to haul him back to that dark room where people speak in soft, scared voices, and he slips beneath cool sheets, and sinks into flocculent pillows, and forgets, forgets, forgets. At first, he welcomed that oblivion, but after two days of hearing laughter beyond the door, and feeling the tentative rays of sunlight peeking through the curtains, of smelling fresh bread, and feeling the Force with an increasing clarity and ease, he finds himself reluctant to embrace the darkness he'd so recently entertained. It doesn't cling to him now, and he wonders – he fears – that perhaps that is only because he's indulging in some fantasy of peace that cannot be sustained. The Empire may descend at any moment. His family may be found traitors. His friends may be slaughtered. His padawan may discover him, and at last, cut him down.

But this is not what the Force says. These are his own fears, whispering to him, taunting him. Out here, in the fields of blue grass and white blossoms, the wind sings in the low tones of bittersweet memory, and it is not all sad. And if he stands still enough, if he listens hard enough, he thinks he might drown out the susurrating dark.

This is where Ue finds him at dusk. Standing still, and lonely at the base of the hill, hiding as he did as a child.

“I did not think you'd be so inconsiderate as to miss our last meal together, daiji'aso,” she says.

He startles. Though he had been watching the sun, he'd not thought to consider its passage as anything more than a celestial exhibition.

“Apologies, Daijisa,” he says, wrapping the deep blue mantle closer about his chest.

“Of course you are forgiven,” she smiles. “Though I cannot promise that Iko will have left you any remnants.”

Obi-Wan smiles, but it is bare, and fleeting, and strikes Ue to her core.

“It may not be my place to say it – I know you find it difficult, but...we shall all of us miss you, terribly. I hope you know that. I hope you understand that. And know that you are always welcome here – even when not in dire need. But I will not make you promise again.”

“I would not burden you so,” he says. It is a promise anyway, but not one she would wish to hear.

“You are not a burden, daiji'aso,” she insists. “Do not think that. You are a joy.”

“I have been ill, and weak, and absent,” he says.

Ue shakes her head, and reaches out to grasp his arm. He shivers beneath the cloak, avoiding her eye, even as she ducks her head to meet his.

“You have been recovering,” she says.

“No,” he replies. “I have been thinking. All of – everything is wrong, and I think...You can't know, but so much of it – You must see that I am to blame, Daijisa.”

Her brow furrows, and her lips purse. She pulls away, reflexively baffled by this statement. “Goodness,” she says, “You would claim responsibility for the fate of the entire galaxy? That is a heavy burden to bear.”

Obi-Wan sighs. He remembers his master playing similar tricks of sophistry upon him, whenever he thought his padawan overly solicitous of censure. But he had been a child then, and his actions did not carry the weight they do now.

“Not directly,” he counters, more firm in his declaration. He will not allow her to undercut his claim. He does not deserve her mercy, and she should know just how wretched he's become. She should know the details of his failure, every tragic little intricacy. “I'm not quite so arrogant as that. We were all of us blind, I know, but it was _I_ who sat upon the fulcrum of fate and failed to keep it steady. This present Darkness must be put to me, for I cannot believe that it is what the Prophecy foretold. That _this_ is balance. I cannot believe that this is the will of the Force.”

“The designs of the gods are never ours to know. We can only do better by ourselves, and ask them for guidance.” Ue smiles at him, and he resents her for it. How can she so blithely dismiss his insufficiency?

“The Force is not a god, and you cannot beg of it favors the way you would an idol.”

His mother is untroubled by his tone, having spent many years snapped at and scorned by recalcitrant children who at various points always knew better than she. “And why not?” she asks. “It is just as distant and obscure as any of them. I have prayed to the Force every day since you left, and sacrificed more at its altar than most.”

“And has it ever answered your prayers?”

“It has spared you. And that is all I ever asked.”

He falters then, staring at her with wide, worried eyes. There is fear there, and despair, and he pleads with her to see, to understand that he has foundered, and is deserving of nothing more than her disdain – less: his own absence. It comes out of him in one great rush, and he lets the words tumble from his lips without pride. Only the sincerity of his own belief can be heard in this comprehensive condemnation of his soul. She listens to him, rapt and still, her eyes on him, and her hands folded neatly in front of her.

“I have not been spared, mother. I am not saved. I'm broken, and weary, and lost. I am headstrong, and angry, and vain, and foolish, and all the things I always feared I was. I have made so many mistakes, and had so little success. I have been ill-used, and have so used others. There was a girl...not my own apprentice, but I failed her just as completely as anyone can be failed. I have been made a pawn in the destruction of my Order, in the death of thousands – maybe millions. I have lost my mentors, my friends. All my men – they followed me to their own annihilation. My brother. I slew him. He fell by my hand, and it was I who condemned him to torment and death. He is gone. Everything is gone...It is all ashes, now. Don't pray to the Force for mercy – there is nothing left of me to be spared.”

And when he is done, he breathes. His hands shake against his body, hidden away beneath the folds of the heavy cloth, and his knees feel flossy and weak. He could collapse, but he won't. He won't. Instead he looks out across the field, and plucks a tiny star-flower from the grass, twisting it between his thumb and forefinger so that it spins, dancing in his hand.

Ue turns to face the field, and he can feel her abandonment as though she has physically broken away from him, splintering their connection like rotted wood. The dancing stops, and his breath catches, snagging on the ragged edges his confession had torn in his throat. A pale hand covers his, soft, and as delicate as the bloom.

“Do you know,” Ue begins. “When you fussed as a babe, it broke my heart that I could not settle you. Oh, they say babies will always calm, eventually, but you were so fractious so often I began to doubt you’d ever truly find peace. I used to walk up and down the lanes, through the fields of _obiwan_ , down by the river, you crying, me holding you and whispering, and sometimes crying myself, and sometimes, in those moments - forgetting all the joy and happiness of only hours before – I would think to myself “Stars, I will give my heart to the first person who can make my son smile.” You smiled so bright for the Jedi who took you away; I could not regret him for that. And even though everything has come to this, I would do it all over again if it would make you happy.”

“I am not happy, Ama.”

“But you have known it. You’ve had a father. A brother. A lover. Children. Family. Purpose. Faith. Ability. You have moved mountains, you have changed the rotations of planets, you have ignited suns, you have wrought miracles. There are people – _worlds_ – who are better for your existence. You have taught. You have cherished. You have helped. You have held, and been held, and there is so much yet left for you to do.” She takes the blossom from his anxious hands, and fixes it to the fastening of his cloak, smoothing the collar with a fond caress. “There’s a boy inside with your grandmother’s eyes, and a weary old soldier who has crossed the galaxy for you. There’s a girl in the desert, and twins who turn toward the light like the _obiwan_ does, and they will need you to teach them how. Love them, Obi-Wan, because they love you. You have always been so loved. The war is over. Put down your sword, and pick up the spade. It is time for you to be growing things.”

“Still, I –” He hesitates, hovering on the edge of defeat, of a final, shameful confession. The worst sin; his greatest failing. The seed of every evil, sown within the depths of his own soul, and already rooted deep. But for his mother, who knew all his earliest, keenest hurts, he can give it voice. “...I am afraid.”

“Oh, sweetheart – of course you are. But I’ll tell you the secret of love’s strength,” she whispers, folding her son in her arms. “It’s all in the surrender.”

* * *

The suns rise red over the dunes, and she feels, deep in her bones there is some magic to the myths that people speak. These twin suns, and her twin children – light and vengeance – rising bravely over the barren plains, defiant in their freedom, and bold in their ascent from the bondage of their lineage.

She wipes the sweat from her brow, for here, even the earliest light of the paired stars is enough to wring a body dry and leave it to the sand and dust. But she is clever, and she is resilient, and this desert is her home, so she dresses in finely woven bantha _wol_ dyed white to distract the sun, and pale blue because she still remembers the waters of Naboo. Her tunic hangs to her knees, gently weighted with beads to prevent the mischievous wind from lifting her hems, and tangling in her legs. Soft breeches are worn loose to allow the cool buss of a breeze, and then wrapped tightly about her calves, and feet to prevent the blistering of velvet skin by grit and sand. She does not wear the polarised lenses often worn in the Core, for such luxuries are too expensive to be justified, but she wraps her head in a wide scarf, rolling a narrow ridge just above her forehead to provide a shallow brim to protect her eyes from the worst of the glare. On her back, she carries a Tusken-style cycler-rifle, and over the withers of her eopie, she slings the field-dressed carcasses of Beggar's rats.

It has been two months since she declared a bounty, eight since her quarry had fled, and nearly a year since the galaxy had ended and begun again. But she doesn't think about that so much these days. A flicker there, in blue eyes. A memory in a beetled brow and sullen frown. A laugh that sometimes tumbles over teeth and lips in just the same manner she remembers hearing spill from a little boy in the arms of his mother on Boonta's Eve. Mostly, though, she thinks of Luke – delighted by everything, hands reaching, fingers sticky, and always torn between the extremity of emotion – and Leia, her solemn little girl, ever watchful, already the careful tactician. She thinks of food, and credits, and irrigation systems. She's learning sabacc, and spinning. She's made the Skywalker _tzai_ for Beru, and tasted the Whitesun blend in return. She checks the perimeter lines, and has drafted plans to expand her garden, and today she's going to finish the vaporator.

Owen had been out the week before, and declared that there was nothing wrong with the unit he'd purchased on her behalf, except that it was short one functioning manifold intake which was why the biomechatronical interface kept shorting out. An easy fix, he'd promised, after months of investigative dismantling and percussive maintenance. So Padme had industriously rearranged her budget to afford a replacement part, and set off for Mos Espa with a little money, and some goods to trade, and now, she's nearly home.

She looks towards the horizon, the suns rising higher and higher as her eopie trundles onward. Eventually, the shallow dome of her hut arcs above the dunes, and the sound of metal on metal rings out in time with Luke's laughter. A woman's voice calls out an indulgent caution, and Padme can hear Owen's cursing echo in the empty hollow of the evaporator's main chamber. She smiles, and urges her mount onward.

At the edge of her yard, just where the dunes level out into something flat and somewhat compact, she dismounts, slipping the reigns over the eopie's head and tugging it along behind her. It grunts, reminding Padme of the burdens she has yet to relieve it of. The noise startles Owen, who sits up, Luke beside him studiously disassembling a few simple scraps his uncle has provided for his amusement. Beru stands just inside the _bochu_ with Leia in her arms. Her daughter sees her first, and reaches, babbling a string of enthusiastic syllables. “Mama-mama,” she calls.

Luke laughs, drawing himself to shaky feet barely aligned beneath wobbly knees. He giggles in delight, tottering forward for a few miraculous steps before falling into the fine, white sand. His laughter continues as Padme leaves her eopie to wander to its feed, and sweeps her son up into a warm embrace. She lifts him high above her, and his eyes shine in flight.

“Have you been very good for your uncle, and your aunt?” she coos.

Luke burbles in reply. He is, at least, quite satisfied with his own comportment.

“No!” Leia shouts, and Padme might suspect her of telling tales, except that phrase has lately been expressed with great frequency, having found popularity as Leia's favorite word. This may be related to the fact that it is a phrase she hears with even greater regularity, as the little girl has a talent for being always underfoot, engaged in activities she ought not be.

Her mother steps near, shifting Luke to her side, collecting her daughter from her aunt, and gathering her tight in her other arm, pressing a kiss to Leia's foreheard, small fingers tugging at the silky fall of her veil twisting in the wind.

“They were nearly perfect,” Beru assures her, adjusting her sleeves, rumpled by her niece's recent occupancy, and sweeping a tender caress over the child's back.

“Nearly?” Padme gasps, nuzzling her nose to Leia's, who pouts and pushes her mother away with a full palm laid flat against her mouth.

Beru laughs, and Padme grins at her in shared confederacy.

“Here,” she says. She thrusts her hip forward, and Beru retrieves the vaporator intake from a small satchel tied to Padme's waist, delivering it to Owen's waiting hands. Padme skips, and twirls dancing her children in a riotous circle, humming and laughing with them, stepping in patterns only vaguely resembling ones she knew by rote in her old life. As she spins, a flash of gold sparks on the horizon behind her, like a falling star, like brilliant jewels, like dazzling sunbeams, and she stops to find the source.

It comes and goes, and reappears drawing ever closer, until she can make out a figure in the distance. He gleams in the sun, shining like a righteous blade, and with him she sees two other figures. One is slight, and smaller in the way of boys who have yet to broaden into manhood, but the other...narrow, upright shoulders, measured steps, and a silhouette so neatly cut from the very cloth of dignity that it can be no other than Obi-Wan Kenobi, returned at last.

She stares, scarcely believing that they can be here, so close, and she waits for the desert to wipe them away as just another mirage wavering in the bands of rising heat. But they remain. They grow larger.

Behind her, there's a clattering of durasteel, and Owen cries out, “The karking outtake valve is faulty, and you're going to lose your reserve!”

But Padme isn't listening. Beru notes her distraction, and comes to join in her vigil as the travelers draw near. Soon, she can see the color of their cloaks, the lines of Boil's armor. Luke and Leia see them too, and when they are near enough to recognize their faces, Leia shrieks with joy, laughing at last as she reaches out for the clone.

He leaves his charge, dropping his helmet, and jogging the bare distance between them to pluck the girl from her mother's arms, pulling her close and laughing too.

Relieved of one burden, Padme surges forward to meet her knight-errant halfway. He hesitates, but she doesn't, throwing an arm around him, and tucking Luke between them. This time, she feels him return the embrace, wrapping his arms around them both, and clinging to her with all the ferocity of life she'd missed before.

“You're back,” she whispers into the crook of his neck. A flower is pinned to the fabric just below his throat. She admires it, small and white, and something like a tempered star.

“I am,” he agrees.

Metal groans, and something snaps, and Owen spits out every Huttese curse he knows. Just as he predicted, the weakened seal gives way beneath the restored pressure, and the reserves race from the condenser unit at the base of the array straight to its very summit. Water bursts forth from the upright spigot at the top of the vaporator, and Padme laughs as for the first time in living memory, rain falls on Tatooine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been assured this chapter is NOT boring, but only after I threatened to scrap the whole thing and rewrite it. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, all of Obi-Wan's family is drawn from ruth baulding's Legacy, as well as the idea that he was named for a flower. Basically, read Lineage, and talk to me about it. Thanks. One more chapter to go! One more task for Padme to complete!


	7. be'chaaj'taabir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I did it. I finished this. I'm also thinking of adding a chapter breaking down all the like.........easter eggs, and shit that I put in? And the poems I wrote for it, bc I didn't use half of them...anyway.
> 
> I love to hear your feedback, and I'd be forever grateful for any reviews you might leave! Thank you for coming with me!

_“Upon a little table in her berth,_ _  
__There sat a casket rimmed with firelight,_ _  
__That held more beauty than e'er found on earth,_ _  
__More than e'er could be caught by mortal sight.”_ _  
_  
\- The Forlorn Queen, Myth of the Ancient Naboo

* * *

Life continues, but its ways are neither simple nor easy, and fate has never cared to be kind. The suns still burn, the wind still moans, the storms still whip up their fury into a deadly maelstrom of acrimony and hate. Sometimes, the seeds die in the soil before they sprout, and sometimes the only water they can find evaporates in the spiteful ripple of a mirage. There are days when Padme’s head aches with remembered sorrow, and nights when Obi-Wan wanders the empty dunes, shivering, and contrite. But they tell themselves there are other things to consider. So they put away their sorrows, locking them in the _haffa_ chest, folding them small, and tucking them beneath an old chapbook of Naboo sonnets, and saber hilts whose hearts still sing, though they’re swaddled in cloth and bound in a length of cord knotted about an old _japor_ carving. _There are other things to consider._

“Something is coming,” Korkie whispers in the dark. 

Tatooine is much as Obi-Wan remembers it, but he treasures these late night confederacies as much for their familiarity as for their novelty. The warm luminescence of their return still lingers in the halo of yellow light emanating from the modest lamp burning on the table, as he and his fellow conspirators draw close. A dish of Beru’s _hubba_ pottage lies between them, half devoured, utensils abandoned with varying degrees of care amidst the ruins. Owen’s _fierdrek_ runs liberally from the bottle into their glasses, little parades of bantha tripping about the circumference, stained pink and red by the liquid. Korkie laughs loudly, without fear. Boil grumbles through quirked lips. Padme presses her shoulder against his own, and Obi-Wan feels almost content.

“There were whispers amongst the Owls,” Korkie says, over his empty glass. His _fierdrek_ had been industriously substituted for water by Beru about an hour before, after she’d heard more in Obi-Wan’s casual observation of Korkie’s age than the boy had. His spirits have remained high regardless, and he tells his story with all the eloquence of a player. His voice rises and falls, drawing his audience along with piquant tones, and enthusiastic gestures. “I heard rumours that a faction of Republic sympathisers was organising. A small group, but growing. Armies. Political leaders. Even a few old senators. People powerful enough, and smart enough, and _rich_ enough to fight back.” 

Boil scoffs. “I didn’t hear any talk of that over Mandalore.”

But Korkie is not to be discouraged. He skewers another morsel of pottage, and pops it into his mouth, waving the utensil as though he might conduct their skepticism into motifs of belief. 

“Of course not,” he says. “You were rather preoccupied. Besides, since Vardoss, we’ve been scattered, and the Empire’s usurpation of my aunt’s regency - however temporary it may be - has only served to distract us further. The Emperor’s boot is upon the neck of Mandalore, and all our efforts are focused on survival. But soon,” Korkie vows, “We shall be bent on victory.”

“These rebels,” Padme says, her interest piqued at the possibility of political allies she might remember. “Where are they located?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Korkie teases, cheerfully. “See, I got to thinking...it was something Owen said, actually. Not you, sir -” he amends, his words adopting an accent of anxious deference as he confirms the innocence of his host, who seems to harbor some quiet grudge against him.

Owen grunts, and takes another bite of Beru’s dish to avoid further engagement. Korkie hastily continues.

“ _Atasowen_ ,” he says. “General Kenobi’s brother -”

“Oh, you were visiting your brother, then?” Owen asks, not bothering to look at his target, but unable to resist the dig nonetheless. “Just thought to drop in on some family, while we were here -”

“Atasowen,” Beru confirms. “I remember the name. What did he say?”

The tension has ratcheted up, and they all feel it, except, perhaps, Boil, who is rather distracted with rocking Leia. She nods in his arms, propped against his chest, but she fights with sleep for dominance, not wanting to miss this late night assignation. Obi-Wan does his best to ignore Owen’s ire, but he can feel Padme shifting irritably beside him. He covers his discomfort with drinking deeply of the drek, while Beru coaxes Korkie into continuing.

“Well, it’s more, when we got there, he was so - well, because Iko-Re is an officer in the navy, the _Imperial_ Navy, so I was paying attention -”

“You were eavesdropping on their conversations,” says Boil. 

Korkie looks horribly affronted for a moment, before the flush of embarrassment admits his transgressions.

“No! Oh, well, maybe that _first_ time, but then, Iko talked to me about it. Man to man -”

“So to speak,” hums Boil.

“ _Anyway,_ ” prods Padme. “He spoke to you of a resistance.”

“Yes.”

“And what did he say?” she asks.

Obi-Wan says nothing. He leans in, crossing his arms over the table, and listens.

“It’s real,” Korkie says. “It’s more than a rumor. It’s more than an idea. There are people rallying to our cause. Iko-Re has been feeding information to Atasowen for years now - since before the wars were ended, before the Stewardship changed sides. And Atasowen, as Daijon Kenobi, has been using his position to get that information to the resistance. To Alderaan.”

Obi-Wan starts, and he can feel Padme go still beside him, her posture rigid with anticipation. “Alderaan?”

“Yes,” Korkie nods. “It’s a Core world. They’re operating right under the Emperor’s ugly nose.”

Padme glances at him, then away, but their mutual comprehension is too great to go unnoticed by the rest of their company. Even Boil looks away from his charge, his gentle swaying falling into fixed readiness.

“You know it?” Korkie asks.

Obi-Wan opens his mouth, wanting to deflect, and yet finding himself powerless to deny this avenue of redemption. And why should he? For all that it can only be impossibly dangerous to hope, it is still a powerful ally in the face of defeat. While he wrestles with his disquiet, Padme speaks instead.

“The senator - that is, the senator _that was_ \- is a friend. He was there in the final hours of my confinement. He witnessed the fall of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He purchased our escape, and our salvation here. If there is a rebellion against injustice, then we may be certain he and his wife are at the centre of it.”

“Who is he, my lady?” Korkie asks, and Padme hears the whisper of his father’s diplomatic tones.

“Bail Organa,” she says, not hesitating to name him. Her trust in those gathered beneath the roof of her modest hut is absolute. “Of the royal house.”

“A king?” Beru breathes.“So high and mighty as that?”

Padme meets her wondering gaze with stoic sincerity.

“There could not be another more worthy of a crown,” she says. 

They are all humbled by her faith, and fall into silent contemplation of the man she bestows with such grace. But Obi-Wan notes that not all their number have been struck dumb by awe. Korkie leans into the light, his brow drawn, and his mouth pressed into a determined line. It’s an expression the Jedi recognises. He isn’t overwhelmed. He’s strategizing.

The next morning, Korkie comes to Padme dressed in unembellished travelling clothes. He has come to beg an audience of the queen, hoping to catch her alone, but finds her in attendance with her knight. Obi-Wan watches as Korkie’s gaze flits across his face, his confidence wavering under the Jedi’s keen observation. 

“Good morning, Korkie,” Padme says, smiling gently in greeting.

The boy throws back his shoulders, and stiffens his spine. He spares Obi-Wan a fleeting acknowledgement that falls indecisively between a nod and a shallow bow, before proceeding directly to Padme, and executing a formal genuflection.

“My lady,” he says.

“Now, none of that,” she chides. She lays her hands over his shoulders, and bids him to rise, patting his cheek with earnest affection. “We’re all family, here, aren’t we?”

Korkie’s jaw works independently of sound for an instant, before his voice recovers itself.

“Yes, of course,” he replies. But Obi-Wan knows the conventions of Mandalore which have raised the boy; the ceremony of Clan Kryze, the pomp of the Ruling Council, and the countless traditions of various military academies. Deference and politesse are his crutches, and he cannot help but fall back on them whenever he finds himself in unfamiliar straits. Obi-Wan knows all too well the limitations of adherence to a strict code of conduct, and he wonders if here, where Korkie is the _only_ stranger amongst friends, he feels his lack of ease much more acutely. 

The young man bites his lip, and runs a hand across his jaw. Obi-Wan notes his discomfort with a correspondingly ponderous hand to his own mouth. Padme seems to find something about the moment endearing, for her face is alight with sympathetic mirth.

“What can I do for you, Korkie?” she asks.

“Well, ma’am - _miss -_ ”

“- Padme.”

“...Padme. About last night, when we were - about the resistance,” he says. “You mentioned a Bail Organa. You seemed certain that he would be at the head of this movement, and I thought...I was hoping you might connect me. As a friend. As _family._ ”

“Oh?” she inquires, amused at hearing her own pronouncement turned against her as cleverly applied leverage. His shoulders straighten further, determination now fueling his address, not just respect.

“I mean to join them,” he declares. His tawny hair is swept back, an orderly part at the side. He’s quite decided on his course, but his clipped tones belie some doubt, even as they promise defiance should anyone attempt to dissuade him. “It would be most helpful,” he says, “If you would be willing to speak for me.”

Padme regards him very solemnly for a moment, long enough that Korkie begins to squirm beneath her speculation. Obi-Wan wonders why she waits, he wonders why she looks to him, as though for permission, he wonders why her sigh sounds so heavy when she turns back to the boy, and he wonders why his own chest feels tight when at last she smiles, and grips Korkie’s hand in hers.

“Of course,” she says. “It would be my honor to introduce you.”

Korkie nods, though his knees bend as if he’s only just managed to abort a bow, and thanks Padme. His task complete, he turns to the Jedi, hesitating over speech before offering yet another brief nod instead, and hurrying from the room.

“I should go with him,” Obi-Wan says in the moment after.

The detritus of the night before has been cleared away, the intimacy, the warmth, bleeding out with the dawn, leaving in its place a stark resolution. Not only Korkie’s - Obi-Wan has been thinking, too, and though he aches to lose something he’s only just beginning to discover, the inchoate sprouts of present complacence must be uprooted for the benefit of securing a future. He can help this fledgling rebellion. He is uniquely suited to it in a way that he is not suited to a quiet life here.

He understands that, now. It is not a clawing grief that prompts his departure, nor an insurmountable guilt. Those are burdens he recognises as not solely his to bear. He does not hold a monopoly on the folly of the universe.

But neither can he be indifferent to it, and though there is peace to be found in this desert, he knows it doesn’t belong to him. Padme is alive. Her children thrive. They have a doting aunt, and protective uncle, and they have no need of him. He is an interloper on their happiness, and it is time he picked up the mantle of his Order once more. _Let a Jedi have no place, no name, no history, and no self_. He is not meant for this happiness. He is not meant for idleness, or agriculture. He does not belong to himself.

He is a pathfinder. A wayfarer. A seeker, not a saint. He is a Jedi. He must bring light into all the dark places of the galaxy.

At first, Padme says nothing in response to his pronouncement, and he’s pathetically grateful that she does not demand reasons for this decision. Truly, he feels at a loss to explain anything that has happened in the past year, and yet he knows that she - of all those who have stood by him - is, perhaps, the most entitled to his justifications. But she asks for none.

She is quiet, considering him while Luke stacks plastoid blocks in front of him, more evidence of Boil’s indulgence. After a time, she nods, dropping gracefully to the floor to join her son in play.

“If you feel you must,” she says. Though she is compassionate, none of the comfort she granted Korkie is spared for him.

He is glad of her acquiescence. And yet…

“I wish -”

She raises a brow, waiting. But Obi-Wan doesn’t know what he wishes. He feels it, but he cannot phrase it, so the sentence lies between them, young and adrift in the dry air of Tatooine. Once it is lost, she turns back to her son, picking up a block and turning over, holding it just beyond his grasp, making Luke reach for the thing he wants.

“I thought of joining them, too,” she confesses. “When Korkie spoke of Bail, and the resistance, I admit my first thought was much the same as yours. I wanted to leave. To go to them. To be of use. I was a senator, and a diplomat. I was a negotiator, too. I’ve seen my own share of war, and it is my...I sometimes feel as though none of this would have happened if I’d refused him on Naboo. But I didn’t. I encouraged him. I kissed him back. I loved him back. And he fell because he loved me, too.”

“Padme -”

“But then, I think that is being selfish,” She interjects, sharply. “How can I be responsible for someone else’s choice? How can I claim to be the deciding factor in the fate of _trillions_ of people? I am responsible only for a few things: myself, my children, and maybe the loss of Beru’s third best skirt, but I will maintain that that was the result of an accident which could not have been predicted.”

She smiles at him, the light of it evaporating any strife which might try to condense between them. Her teeth gleam white, and straight. Her eyes crinkle, and there is such joy in her expression that Obi-Wan forgets the sting of her lesson. She looks younger than he has ever felt, and Luke’s giggle trills through the air at the sight of his mother’s delight. She looks to her son, now laughing with him, their happiness commingling, one feeding the other, and Obi-Wan feels his own smile start to unfurl from the bud of his lips, sharing in their elation.

“My children have saved me as much as I have saved them, and I owe it to them to be here, not consorting with the ghosts of my past. And though I know I could help Bail Organa, my family needs me more. I am where I’m meant to be. I really believe that.”

He believes that for her also, and he is happy for it. 

Obi-Wan settles into a quiet study of the two, sinking into the present, and giving the here and now a moment to breathe. Motherhood suits her. It is not a state he has much contemplated before, but with his own mother such a recent memory, Padme’s maternal bliss strikes him afresh. There is something divine about it, a harmony between mother and child which resonates in a way he imagines might be similar to how he felt at Qui-Gon’s side, or back to back with Anakin in battle. Two souls in true accord, balanced within the heart of the Force, basking in the plenum of understanding and amity. Perfect love.

“He looks so like Anakin,” he says.

“Do you think so?” Padme inquires. She tilts her head, and Luke tilts his back in imitation. Her smile only grows. “Perhaps in his eyes,” she acknowledges. “But I like to suppose I’m there, too.”

“In his delight,” Obi-Wan affirms. “He is made for joy. And Leia - she has your seriousness. Your consideration. Your beauty.”

“Ah, there’s the old flatterer,” she teases, and he laughs.

Luke shuffles forward, and Padme offers her hand to raise him from a crouch to his feet, allowing him to toddle off towards the low sleep-couch with a fond look. 

“I don’t see Anakin as much anymore,” she says, softly, her eyes on her son. “More often than not, when I look at my children, I see you.”

Obi-Wan can’t help the way his head snaps up in alarm, the way he feels himself falter as if he has missed a step in some dance, though his feet don’t move. He wants to refute her, but Padme continues, oblivious to the disbelief sweeping through the Jedi, like a cold wind through a house when it’s finally opened to the spring. He is scoured clean of the fetid must of winter. Fear, and sorrow are blown out, leaving only the emptiness of sudden revelation.

“He has your curiosity,” she says. “Your selflessness. He is forever trying to give away the things he loves; toys, snacks - half eaten polta, although that may be a better example of your cunning. And Leia...I have never seen a more uncompromising child. She wants the good opinion of her family, but she will not sacrifice her honor to do so. And though she is hardly more than an infant, she certainly has a refined sense of her own dignity. Sometimes, she makes me feel little more than a serf beneath her rule.”

He stares at the boy, looking for the things she looks for, trying to see what she does. And maybe because she has suggested it, he thinks he almost recognises those pieces of himself where she identifies them. She regards him once more, and he supposes he might allow her praise, but just like their radiance in the Force is the legacy of their father, he knows their boundless kindness is all innately _her_.

“So you see, Obi-Wan, you are a part of us, here. You are not a burden, or a guest, or a trespasser. You are intrinsic. You belong. You are _wanted_. And when you go to join the rebellion, we will be bereft. They will be lucky to have you, and we will just have to do our best without.”

* * *

Obi-Wan joins Korkie as he is meditating over a small rucksack, debating between an old holobook, and a muja pit, a furrow between his brows. He looks up at the Jedi’s approach, and offers a tentative smile.

“I had meant to plant it,” he says, gesturing to the seed. “Ue said they need only a little water to sprout, but that it takes years to grow a tree that will fruit.”

Obi-Wan nods, tucking his hands into his sleeve, and exercising his own survey of Korkie’s possessions. He’d arrived on Stewjon with nothing more than the clothes he wore, but since then, he’s managed to amass an impressive collection of mementos. He watches as Obi-Wan recognises the holo as Beru’s - a collection of Tatooine folktales she’d bartered for the last time they’d traveled to Mos Espa. Korkie had accompanied them into town, ostensibly to guard against any potential threat, but he’d been quickly distracted by the exotic markets, and customs.

Now, his little sleep-pallet was piled with an assortment of garments dyed in Terajon blues, and Tatooine creams, a small model ship from Iko, a twist of wire gifted by Luke, a durasteel blade from Boil. Leg wraps, insulated gloves, a cheap set of macrobinoculars, a blaster, a few power cells, and a battered old commlink. It is everything he owns, but more than he can carry, and the Jedi must realise he is debating on what to take, and what he’ll have to leave behind. 

His eyes track back to the muja pit. Korkie follows his line of sight, and pauses. Obi-Wan has yet to openly acknowledge his paternity, but Korkie suspects - he feels _certain_ \- the General is aware. But he is still surprised when he confirms it.

“Your grandmother is a wise woman,” he says. “I’m sorry you could not know her better.”

“I’ll see her again,” Korkie says, and Obi-Wan’s brows rise.

“Are you so certain?”

Korkie shrugs. When they’d been fighting for their lives, and running from the Dark Lord of the Sith, when they’d been dodging blaster bolts, and slicing harddrives, it had been easy. He hadn’t thought. He’d just acted. But now, with General Kenobi recovered and back in control of his faculties, Korkie feels the weight of his judgement more acutely. Obi-Wan is contemplative, and quiet, and he’s found himself the object of study more than once in the past ten-day. He worries about all the ways he must be found wanting.

“I don’t know what the future holds for certain,” he allows. “But I have a good feeling about it.”

For some reason, the Jedi smiles.

“I should like to accompany you to Alderaan,” he says. “If you’ll have me.”

The best efforts of his upbringing desert him, and Korkie cannot conceal his bewilderment.

“Why?”

The Jedi grimaces, folding his hands into the sleeves of his long, brown cloak, and Korkie instantly laments the bluntness of his inquiry. 

“That is to say, you should - you _ought -_ I mean,” Korkie struggles to form his objections into a respectful reservation as opposed to a rude dismissal. “I don’t think that is necessary,” he concludes.

Despite his best attempts at diplomacy, Obi-Wan still looks wounded. He steps closer to the collection of Korkie’s belongings, trailing a hand over them in delicate investigation. He picks up a power cell, turns the nocs about, strokes the fabric of his clothes to feel the difference between the fine twills of Stewjon, and the coarse drape of Tatooine _wol_.

“I fear I have been remiss in my duty to you,” he murmurs, so softly that Korkie has to strain to hear it, and even after the words reach him, he cannot imagine how he might reply, unsure as to which direction the Jedi’s thoughts tend.

“Have you?” he offers, his voice small, and tentative.

Obi-Wan meets his gaze, and smiles. His eyes are sad, and the expression of his mouth is disguised by the prim cut of his beard.

“We both know I have,” he says. “You should know - your mother, she...she never told me. Though that is no excuse.”

“General -” Korkie says, for want of another title, but the man waves his address away.

“I should have been there,” he continues. “For your sake. For hers. If I had known, there is nothing - no duty, no vow - that could have kept me from you. It is a small comfort, but I want you to know that.” He sighs. The words are feeble, and cannot contain the magnificence of feeling he needs to express, the shallow basins of the vowels overflowing their brims, and spilling out onto the dusty earth, swallowed by the desert. “I have missed everything.”

Korkie starts forward, his arms lifting as though he might catch that tide of emotion, but he only catches himself, uncertain of his place and rank. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a diplomat. The Negotiator. Words are his sword and shield, and if they are to battle this one last enemy of guilt together, he must arm himself in complement.

“Not _everything_ ,” he insists, hanging upon the semantics. “I’m hardly eighteen, and though I don’t know a great many things, I do know that one never outgrows their family. There is much left for me to learn and experience, and I should always wish for you to join me in that, to guide me. To be with me. But only if that’s what _you_ wish…”

The Jedi meets Korkie’s earnest gaze with his own astonished aspect, and Korkie can clearly see himself in the blue eyes, the thick shock of ochre hair, the line between his brows that comes from well-practiced contemplation, the angle of his jaw. He hopes that the General can see it, too, hopes that he wants this connection as badly as he does.

His father smiles, raises a hand to lie tenderly along Korkie's cheek, and brings his forehead close to bear against Korkie’s own. They stand brow to brow, breathing quietly, breathing deeply, together.

“I wish…” the Jedi swears. “ _Ni kar’tayli gai sa’ad, Kiorkicek Kryze._ ”

“ _Kenobi_ ,” the boy corrects. “My aunt stands as the leader of our world, as the voice of our people, and the _mand’alor_ of our clan. But I am the child of more than one house, and I would carry your name, if you’d let me.”

Obi-Wan pulls back, concern writ plainly across his features. But this is not a desire newly formed. Korkie has considered it for many years, watching his father from afar, seeing his devotion to peace and justice, and knowing now the gravity of his sacrifice. And there is something else…

“You never asked,” he pushes, “How it was that Boil and I discovered you in Sundari. How it was that in a city of millions, in a palace guarded by armies, and stalked by Sith, how it was that we found you.”

“How?” The Jedi ventures.

“I _felt_ it,” Korkie says. “I _knew_ it. Something told me - an ache in my bones, a pull in my gut, this peculiar beat of my heart. I knew to leave my post near Vardoss. I knew to come back to Concordia, to escort Boil. To choose Stewjon. Even when I didn’t know why, I always knew where I ought to be. With _you._ ” Obi-Wan is staring at him, confusion, horror, disbelief, wonder - all the emotions a father faced with the birth, the maturation, the emancipation, the divine revelation of his child might feel, but compacted into the span of mere seconds. _How can this be?_

“Doesn’t that _mean_ something?” Korkie asks. The melody of his voice is accented with notes of desperation and hope.

“Yes,” he whispers. “It must.”

And Korkie dares to name the danger that lies between them now.

“It is the Force,” he says. “I can feel it. And I am not afraid.”

But Obi-Wan certainly is, for he has seen the bodies of younglings sprawled over marble floors, and stood in their blood, their sin no greater than Korkie’s own. He sets his jaw, and turns away from his son, convinced now of the rightness of his choice.

“You will be,” he says. “And it is all the more reason for me to come with you.”

“No,” Korkie says. He speaks it simply. There is no aggression, or outrage. No terror. No joy, or elation. Just truth.

“You will need me,” Obi-Wan counters.

“Maybe,” Korkie allows. “But you are needed more _here_.”

“Kiorkicek -” he says, as though he’s always censured him so.

“Mother used to show me holos, you know,” he says. “When I was little. We’d watch you on the ‘net. She’d smile whenever you were dragged to the forefront of press conferences, she’d laugh while you issued sly insults couched in polite accessions. And when they showed you on the frontlines, she’d hold my hand and tell me to watch closely because my father was going to teach me what bravery looked like. And I watched. I listened. You may not have been close, but you were always there, and I always knew you for who you were.”

“That is no substitute -”

“Luke and Leia will need someone to teach them the same. I could not wish for a better father, and can think of no one more deserving to be one. It is my turn to carry the sword, now. It is your turn to watch. Please, stay,” he says, and he hands the muja seed to Obi-Wan. “Plant this for me, and I promise, I will be back.”

It is not just his imagination, he thinks, that when Obi-Wan turns to face him again, there is admiration in his eyes. Pride. And maybe, he hopes, _love._

His father strides forward, and Korkie braces himself for a hug, wanting it, and yet fearful it may weaken his resolve. But Obi-Wan does not stop. He brushes past Korkie, and steps to the old _haffa_ chest, buried beneath a pile of carpets, and greenery. With great care, he removes the plants, and shifts the blankets, and lifts the lid of the chest, removing from its belly a small bundle wrapped in cloth, and twine.

The cloth falls open in his hands, soft and yielding, exposing the untarnished hilts of three blades. He selects the middle one, folding the cloth back over the other two and setting them aside. Then, pommel first, he offers it to Kiorkicek.

“If you are to claim the mantle of your lineage, then you’d best take up its blade in your defence.”

The young man extends a hand, proud that it doesn’t shake, though he feels distinctly unsettled in his gut. The saber is heavy in his palm - heavier than he expected - but as it ignites, he feels a rush of power thrill through his arm, and a bone-deep vibration, as though his blood hums in harmony with the blade. The green light is blinding. He can feel the heat of it, but it adds nothing to the weight of the weapon, as though it exists only in his mind, governed by the whims of his application, not gravity or time. He marvels at its beauty, and turns his delight upon his father, grinning.

“The weapon of the Jedi is elegant,” Obi-Wan explains. “It requires great skill to wield, and full command of the Force to master.”

“ _Elek, buir_ ,” Korkie says. “ _Kelir gar ba'jurir ni_?”

“Of course,” Obi-Wan says. His shoulders drop, and he smiles as he guides Korkie into the opening stance of the first kata. “The first thing you need to know about saber technique, _kih’kairkiyc,_ ” he begins, “Is that this weapon is your life.”

* * *

Days pass. Months. Then years.

Luke, golden haired, and golden hearted, is the delight of his mother’s heart, and Leia with her profound gaze, and considering brow, is her conscience and her courage. The twins have never known a home but the one they build here, and so she works to make an idyll of this abyss, and she recalls once imagining it as an endless summer. She thinks upon the summers of her own childhood: the sun winking through the broad palms of green leaves, its effulgent light tamed by their caress; the beaches with their long, shallow spits, the water warm and salty. She remembers picnics in the fields, and building fortresses in the woods. She remembers fishing by hand in little creeks, and picking flowers from her mother’s garden.

Big, bright blossoms, the size of her head made of tiny petals compacted around a yellow centre, peeling back and bursting forth in a riot of colour. Oranges, reds, yellows, pinks. The heady, concupiscent perfume of a millaflower. The delicate, translucent fronds of clariferns. None of these grow on Tatooine.

But Obi-Wan’s garden thrives, and inside the hut the shelves, and surfaces overflow with green. They’ve hung clay pots, suspended in intricately knotted twine made of the bisska grass Beru has collected from the edgelands. Extraneous mugs, and empty wooden boxes that knew one life as vessels of transport have found new employment as nurseries. A mandrangea plant whorls over the brim of its crock, and tumbles to the floor, its domesticated position indoors allowing it freedom from the careful staves and pickets of its outdoor brethren. In the _tullpa,_ there’s a small window, and below it, Padme has carefully positioned a little urn from which a dense cluster of _obiwan_ bursts. The starry faces reach toward the suns, nodding this way and that as she rotates the pot each day.

They’re a delicate flower, requiring more shade and water than Tatooine provides, though they grow like weeds under the right conditions. Owen chided her for the waste the first time he saw them, but Beru soothed the slight by exclaiming prettily over their buds, while Padme laughed and Obi-Wan stood contemplative by the door. 

When they grow to excess, Padme snips a few blossoms and weaves them into Leia’s hair, braiding the locks into a celestial coronet that lasts for nearly a whole day. She is dismayed to realise they do not last forever, though, and demands an explanation.

Beru lifts her to the counter, and shows her how to prune and water the plant, how to make sure it gets enough sun, but doesn’t burn, much like her mother does for her and Luke. Leia watches, rapt with fascination, but confused.

“Why does it take so much work for such tiny little flowers?” she asks.

Her aunt smiles, and hands her a can of water that she might dampen the soil herself.

“Some things require more care than others,” she says. “And we must tend our garden carefully to see that we cultivate beauty and goodness, not weeds or rot. But I think, in the end, the blossom makes the toil worthwhile.”

Leia agrees, and thenceforth takes great pains to see the flowers watered and pruned to their best advantage. They are _her_ flowers now, and for this, Owen forgives the _obiwan_ their fastidious ways.

Eventually, he forgives the man as well. And though he is forevering grumbling over the mysterious and dangerous ways of "Core-soft wizards," he manages to convince every local from Wayfar to the B’Omar Flats that Obi-Wan is, in fact, his wayward younger brother, returned from years of profligate wandering, both the pride and shame of the Lars family, depending on which party he entertains, and how annoyed he is with the Jedi on any given day.

Then, one day, while Padme ties some herbs to hang, and grinds a few that have already dried, and while Leia is out with Obi-Wan whom she has cajoled into escorting her upon a krayt hunting expedition, Luke tells her something rather extraordinary.

“Did you know,” he says, perched on a low stool, assembling and disassembling some mechanical scrap left by Owen. “Did you know that Uncle Ben, he -” he gathers himself, his young tongue tripping over his words, dropping pieces of his thoughts even as he struggles to put them together. “He sometimes - he talks to _ghosts_.”

Padme smiles, and thinks of Boonta’s Eve, and the lakes of Naboo.

“Sometimes, we all do,” she says.

“Yeah,” Luke agrees. “He talks to his ghost a lot. When he’s supposed to be sleeping.”

“Oh, really?” she asks, happy to indulge Luke’s story-telling.

“And he’s really big, and really soft, and he smells like water, and also, when Uncle Ben talks to him, his ghost talks back.”

Padme sets her herbs aside, and turns her focus to Luke.

“You can hear Uncle Ben’s ghost?” she asks. There’s something in his story that strikes her as more than imaginary.

“Mhm,” Luke confirms, blithely. “And he can hear me, too!” 

* * *

Obi-Wan sighs, blissful and content. The wind is at his back, and the suns are setting with a benevolent glow. He gazes out at them, across the desert landscape, feeling their muted heat as a fond caress of his skin, much freckled by their blandishments. Leia cavorts ahead, digging holes that fill in faster than she can hollow them out, checking behind bluffs, overturning stones, and tumbling down dunes in her quest to find a dragon, but Obi-Wan knows there is no danger out here. He can feel it.

And soon, he can feel himself joined by another presence.

It is old, and as familiar as the Force itself, but rarely felt outside his dreams. He closes his eyes, and surrenders to it, tumbling forward into the event horizon of all things, all life, all feeling, all time. 

“ _Master_ ,” he whispers, and a large, calloused hand falls upon his shoulder. It is incorporeal, faintly blue and nearly invisible in the twilight of day’s end, but he can feel its warmth and weight all the same. 

He shifts, turning into the touch, and the cherished form of Qui-Gon Jinn enfolds him in his ethereal embrace.

“ _Brat_ ,” the ghost replies, with equal fondness.

Obi-Wan smiles, and breathes him in, smelling the spice of tea, the cut of grass, the petrichor of rain on stone, the comfort in the wake of forgotten dreams, the pleasure in a lesson learned, the contentment in quiet afternoons, in moments of peace, and rest, and fear, and terror, and loss, and growth, and adoration. It is the scent of his childhood, and his memories come to him in an instant, and for this immeasurable, unknowable span of time, everything, _everything_ , is right in the galaxy.

“I have missed you,” he says. 

The ghost chuckles, those same rich tones bubbling, effervescent in Obi-Wan’s stomach, and lungs, and he smiles, too, eyes laughing, fixed on his old Master, forever young, and exactly as he remembers him.

“Oh, Padawan,” Qui-Gon says, “I never left.”

And Obi-Wan weeps at that, because he knows this cannot be real. He knows what it is to be left, abandoned, betrayed, and lost. He remembers these moments. And just as his surely as he can see his master before him now, he can feel the press of cold floor beneath his knees, feel the weight of a corpse that was so recently a man in his arms, can feel that final touch against his cheek, can hear those final words in his ear - words that were never for him.

“I have missed you,” he repeats, begging Qui-Gon to hear him. This cannot be another mirage, it cannot be his own memories conjured into being, only a reflection, a hollow echo of his deepest wishes.

“Hush,” the ghost whispers, and those fingers are against his cheek again, wiping at the tears that fall upon them just as before. “I am here. It is passed, and I am here.”

“I must apologise, master,” Obi-Wan continues.

“I have noticed this as a favourite pastime of yours,” his master teases. “But whatever for?”

The grief and guilt he’d thought long buried come back to him now, setting him alight. He is burned up in a holocaust. He is drowned in the tide. He is rent asunder by their fury.

“For failing in my duty to you,” he says. “It seems it is a mistake I am doomed to repeat, but my worst and first offence has been in disappointing you. I did my best to do as you asked, master. I trained the boy, I fought for him, I tried to show him the way, but you were right - I was unready. And in the end, I could not be the Jedi you wished.”

The ghost tuts, and turns to the sunset, allowing Obi-Wan a brief reprieve to collect himself, gathering his dignity enough to hear what he has to say. This is not the first time they have conversed in the desert, but it is the first time he has come to his student unheralded by dreams or meditation. It is the first time Obi-Wan has allowed his emotion to overtake his composure, and compromise his strict self-control. But those feelings have always been there, flowing beneath the surface of their conferences like a buried sea, and Qui-Gon harbors no antipathy for their release.

“There is nothing to apologise for, Obi-Wan,” he says. “And there is no disappointment for you to fear. You were, and have ever been, the great pride of my life.”

This is met with the wide eyes, and slack jaw of mute astonishment. Qui-Gon smiles, indulging in a perusal of his last apprentice. He is older now, than how he remembers him in those final days together. The lankiness of youth has long since been replaced by the compact efficiency of experience. His rougher, wilder edges softened by time, like stone smoothed out by coursing sand. He sees lines of sorrow, but also of joy, settling into the corners of his eyes, and his palms are gentled with holding the hands of children, instead of the hilt of a blade. He loves him like this, just as he loved him before. Qui-Gon sighs, a quiet breeze anointing his Padawan’s brow, rustling Obi-Wan’s hair, and sweeping it back from his eyes, clear and blue, and kind.

“Your journey has been long,” he says. “And perilous. And I should never have wished the tragedies upon you that you have been compelled to suffer, but you have proved yourself a worthy Jedi, and a good man. I am humbled by your gracious heart, and your generous spirit, and your profound wisdom. And though I could not walk this path alongside you, I promise that you were never alone, for the Force was with you at every turn.”

His master’s words are incomprehensible to him, and, as was ever his habit, the unknown and unknowable tempt him to count his losses more significantly than his gains.

“Still,” he says, aware that he must sound both young and selfish. “I wish it had been _you_ …”

The ghost cocks his head, surprised that for all his learning, all his work, his student has yet to comprehend this fantastic truth.

“It was,” he says. “Of course it was me. It is always me.”

“But -”

“Who do you think bids the wind cool your brow at the height of Tatooine’s day? Who pulls the moisture from the sky that you may water your plants? Who beat out a rhythm of need in your son’s heart? Who guided your soldier’s path? Who summoned your brother’s ship? Who shifted your commander’s aim? Who concealed your desperate flight? Who spared a mother’s life? Who touched the twins with light? Who followed you out into darkness, and who brought you home again?”

Obi-Wan blinks, for these gifts he’d overlooked, and he is surprised and a bit ashamed for having discounted such blessings before.

“I have never left you, child,” the ghost says. “For I _am_ the Force, and the Force is one with me. And so I shall be with you. Always.”

“Master…” the Jedi starts, but faster than he is able to formulate thought, he is overwhelmed with understanding. With gratitude. With the purity and clarity of power he feels emanating from the world around him. It is everything. It is nothing. It flows through him, eternal and unchanging, creating, binding, illuminating, and guiding his every step. He breathes it in deeply, suffusing his core with its absolving grace until his fingers and toes tingle with the enormity of its presence.

“Thank you,” he says, releasing his grip on his regret of the past, on his fear of the future, on every sorrow and every sin, on all the things he cannot change, and at last, _at last - letting go_. “Thank you, for leading me to this place.”

“This is always where you were meant to be,” Qui-Gon replies, then he smiles, reaching out for his Padawan, once more. They stand together in the sunset until evening falls, and Qui-Gon Jinn fades peacefully away, his voice delicate and divine upon the wind, a hymn in Obi-Wan’s ear. “Never think, my dearest Ben, that you are anything less than best beloved of my very heart.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Words, words, words:
> 
> "Ni kar’tayli gai sa’ad, Kiorkicek Kryze"... "I know your name as my child, Kiorkicek Kryze" This is the Mandalorian adoption vow.  
> "Elek, buir. Kelir gar ba'jurir ni?"... "Yes, father. Will you teach me?"  
> kih’kairkiyc...lit. "little desperate heart," but similar in usage to "sweetheart"


	8. The Forlorn Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession time.
> 
> So, as you may or may not have guessed, this story has become sort of a testing ground, and sacred text for me. It's definitely the longest thing I've ever written, and it challenged me in so many ways. I really love it. I'm pretty proud of it. I hope that when I sort through my pseud in ten years I won't be as horrified as I am by my old ffn account, but if so, we'll just pretend I never wrote this note.
> 
> Because this story is an adaptation of Greek myth, and because I spent SO MUCH TIME researching and plotting, and because I LOVE PROCESS more than product, I'm going to be including an additional chapter that gets into the symbolism, and themes I wanted to explore, as well as including a bunch of poetry and stuff I wrote for this story, that never got used, but which I think, sort of adds to character and such anyway.
> 
> But for now, please enjoy the anchor poem in its entirety. 
> 
> And thank you. THANK YOU, SO MUCH, for all you wonderful people who've left me such kind messages, and been so invested in these characters and their journey. I just...you guys! It's not the Jedi way but I, I just *clenches fist* LOVE YOU!

The Myth of the Forlorn Queen  
\- Anonymous  
  
Published c.2900 BFE  
  
Introduction  
by Pr. Juulahe Ombari, ASC, Ch.  
  
This myth from Naboo's classical period, tells the story of a young queen who falls in love with an unsuitable man. Though his status is unclear, except for the statement that he is a "knight" (which has lead some scholars to believe in an early cultural exchange between the Naboo and the proto-Jedi Order, despite there being no evidence in the Jedi archives to support this conjecture. _Sugg. archives - incomp_.), the text makes obvious that this man is not one of the many who traditionally came to Naboo in order to establish an alliance through marriage.

As he succumbs to the fear and doubt of jealousy, symbolised by the "Dark", the young queen's curiosity drives her to expose her husband's folly, validating his fear of her disloyalty, resulting in his flight. Contrite, and ever faithful, the queen begs for her love to return to her, whereupon she is shown mercy by the gods. They assign her four "impossible tasks" (a common trope in Naboo mythology), which - should she complete them - will see her husband divinely restored. The first three she accomplishes, but her own vanity results in her failure to complete the fourth. Thus, she is cast out by the gods. Resigned to her despair, she tries to kill herself, but is saved from drowning (a baptismal event) by a mortal fisherman. He, too, bears the scars of loss and grief, but in each other they find their own peace, speaking to our need to rely on each other, just as much as the intervention of the gods, who can be capricious and fickle.  
  
There are other familiar motifs in this piece, notably, the focus on a young queen. At this time, queens were not elected heads of state, but neither were they divinely ordained. Instead, it seems that they fell somewhere in between, probably functioning more as religious figureheads. Since spirituality was closely tied to political governance, this would have granted the monarchs of the era a great deal of power, whereas nowadays, their function is far more political than religious. It is interesting to look back and recognise the roots of our own governing systems in a time where our own young queens are raised from birth, and elected by a democratic vote.

Finally, a brief note on the symbolism in this ballad. While we Naboo are not native to our home planet, it is interesting to see how deeply ingrained our culture became within the span of a few short centuries. Each of the "impossible tasks" our nameless heroine is asked to perform is heavily laden with water imagery. Due to Naboo's liquid core and vast oceans, water, waterways, and seafaring practices tend to feature in our earliest artistic endeavours with great significance. The water itself is often tied to the worship of our gods and goddesses, the foremost of which is mentioned here, that being Shiraya.

It is interesting to note that Shiraya was the family goddess of our own forlorn queen, Padme Amidala, whom, legend has it, died for the love of her own lost knight.

Please enjoy, _The Forlorn Queen_.

* * *

  
A long, long time ago, when first love breathed  
A father and his wife begat two maids  
With hearts that shone as bright as swords unsheathed,  
With beauty like the blossoms in the glade.  
  
But twixt them twas the youngest mind most keen.  
So in the verdant springtime of her youth  
Ascended to that seat of sovereignty  
Which best befitted that inchoate truth.

Whereof, by this, her fame spread far and wide  
Until the stars did fall, and became men  
Who coveted the queen to be their bride.  
But though they pressed, she would have none of them.

For in the holy cavern of her breast  
There burned a flame of everlasting Light.  
Of humble roots was her beloved best,  
Yet noble was her aureated knight.

So truly twinned were their respective hearts  
The gods above could not but watch in bliss,  
And wink their eyes at ever cunning Dark  
Who waited, jealous, thirsting for a kiss.

Then in the night, It crept up to his ear,  
And whispered wicked things into his sleep,  
Until the boy was twisted by the fear,  
Of losing something never his to keep.

But lo! The maid was not to be forlorn  
By all things gentle, good, and mild,  
And thus, arose their timorous voice to warn  
Her that her heart's own heart had been defiled.

So in the shade, this maiden brave stood by  
And while he slept she held aloft a knife  
And sorrow fell astreaming from her eye  
To think that she might strike and take his life.

A single golden tear of burning oil  
Fell from her likewise devastated lamp  
And in the light, he woke and he recoiled,  
And doused the room in mortifying damp.

“Alas!” He cried, “That you should kill me thus!  
And drown my soul in everlasting night,  
Your vows are lies, your love is treasonous!”  
And up he flew, and vanished from her sight.

Then so bereft, she cried out in her grief,  
Repenting neath a million endless skies  
She wandered searching ever for relief,  
And begging for the gods to let her die.

Until, one hearing oft her piteous moans,  
Appeared unto the girl in her distress,  
That One to us is as Shiraya known,  
And with her word, this mortal queen she blessed.

“O child! What is it brings thee to thy knees,  
When thou art counted favoured most of few  
Whom I have wrought from currents in the sea,  
And wreathed with starlit morning dew,  
  
Whose sight is crystal as the lake at dawn,  
Whose heart contains the fathoms of the earth,  
Who is it that has left your face so drawn,  
And swallowed up the plenary of mirth?”

“O, Mother! Mother! Hear me now, I cry,  
And pity her that comes to you debased.  
Now wretched, and abandoned here she lies,  
Who hath unto a man bestowed her grace.”

“Arise, poor fool, and know that you are not  
Alone, for in your sorrow you will find  
A babe by your eternal love begot  
And so his loss you shall cease to repine.”

Then close within the hollow of her womb  
There flared the barest kindling of flame  
That though she sought the everlasting tomb  
Her child yet would save her from the same.

But even still her love could not be quelled  
And so, the goddess set to her a task  
That might restore the girl she loved so well ,  
And leave this abject shadow to the past.

“If you would seek a love for you most true,  
And gain again that joy you plainly crave,  
Then for me must these several things you do,  
Or be your heart consigned to the grave.

These fields which hold the bounty of the earth,  
Doth yield their crops in intermingled heaps.  
So first, you must determine each their worth,  
Accounting for the whole of what you reap.

That done, the next which falls unto your lot,  
Is hidden on the belly of a whale.  
And when this monstrous beast you then have caught,  
Bring unto me his golden, shining scale.

This deed fulfilled, you then must quench my thirst,  
With waters pooling high on yonder hill,  
That runneth from the star at night seen first,  
Until I say that I have drunk my fill.

But this alone is not all that I ask,  
For as the sister of the Sun I am most vain,  
And thus I charge to you a final task,  
That I might, too, her golden glow attain.  
  
When She hath drooped her head and gone to sleep,  
To her most heav'nly bower must you steal,  
And there her rosy ointment she doth keep.  
Remove it hence, yet never break the seal,

For though the spell of beauty most divine,  
Is something that all mortal youth have sought,  
This secret thing shall e'er be solely mine,  
Or else thou shall have toiled so for naught.”

The girl at once arose from where she sat,  
And lifted up that proud, defiant mien.  
She set off without ever looking back,  
Beginning with the fields lush and green.

Though light and nimble were her small, white hands  
More yet she raised when to the pismites called,  
And with their countless limbs they duly ran,  
Amidst the grain, and seeds, collecting all.

Then to the frigid waters clear as glass,  
She leapt, and there she hunted the great whale,  
And found him tangled in the long sea grass.  
For freeing him, he granted her the scale.

From lowest shore she scrambled up the peak,  
And reached the summit just as sunset fell,  
Where there the starlight bubbled in a creek,  
Whose water she collected in a shell.

She brought this vessel back unto the Moon,  
Who smiling, raised it up to kiss her lips,  
And drank away the blazing heat of noon -  
The resolute young queen had not one sip.

Instead, she watched the Sun as she progressed,  
Removing from her feet the hard-soled shoes,  
That might awake the goddess from her rest,  
And in the gloaming twilight she withdrew.

Upon a little table in her berth,  
There sat a casket rimmed with firelight,  
That held more beauty than e'er found on earth -  
More than e'er could be caught by mortal sight.

The queen, at once, took it up in her arms,  
And thought upon the beauty of her knight,  
And thought he might regret her faded charm,  
And thought her goddess moved to jealous spite.

And thinking thus, she lifted up the lid,  
And spread the holy embers on her face,  
For surely though they burned they also hid  
The vow of rehabilitated grace.

And when the goddess Moon beheld the churl -  
Alas! Poor maid! She more than grace betrayed,  
For as the goddess once had warned the girl,  
The love she pined for ever lost would stay.

And so, the queen, abandoned to her woe,  
With ravaged beauty washed by endless tears,  
Upon the sea she then herself did throw,  
To pierce her breast upon the foamy spear.

But Death would not her happy escort be,  
For in the restless, raging, bounding main,  
A fisherman redeemed her from the sea,  
And coaxed that fire alight in her again.

For though he wore a coat of glinting stars,  
He knew as well as she the wounds of grief,  
And as her own face bore the telltale scars,  
So was his sight plucked by that selfsame thief,

Thus he could not behold the marks of hate,  
Nor could she find in him a hidden guile,  
And in each other bounded up their fate,  
Redeeming one another with a smile.

And though she dreamed of love now gone away,  
She cleaved unto her chest his lasting boon,  
His very image in her dearest babe,  
And in the fisherman, a loving groom.

* * *

Excerpted with permission from _The Memorial Library at Theed._  
  


Anonymous. "The Forlorn Queen." _The Collected Poems, Theed Vol. I-III_. Guarlana's Stable, 1BFE, pp. 132 - 134.


	9. Notes and Poems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think this is mostly everything. As one eagle-eyed reader pointed out, the fic title itself references Padme's idea of an endless summer - but that future is proceeded by this eternal spring. It's also meant to play on the idea of a wellspring of water, and that even in the desert, there is the hope of water. Of course, hope is a huge underlying part of it, and people who farm moisture somewhere that rain doesn't fall must be exceedingly hopeful people. And as Alexander Pope says "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."
> 
> That's it. I swear, I'm done now. I think. At least this part. Probably.
> 
> I just LOVE PROCESS! So I apologise if this is boring, but like...these are the puzzle pieces I loved (And honestly, these poems came first!) Thanks for being besties, you besties.
> 
> ALSO, delayed but profound thank you to everyone on the Qui/Obi discord, and Scruffy and Pomiar most particularly. <3 Love you.

**The Eternal Spring: Flotsam and Jetsam**

Well, hello. This fic turned out to be a lot more laden with symbolism than I intended, didn’t it? For one thing, there's a lot of self-referential things, and cycling. Padme can't get Leia to settle in the first chapter, and Ue talks about feeling the same thing with Obi-Wan as a baby. Not only is this meant to suggest that a Force sensitive child can sometimes require more than non-Force sensitive parents can provide, but it's another way that Obi-Wan is visible in the kids. Ue tells Korkie he must be beloved by his father, and her assertion is proved when Qui-Gon tells Obi-Wan that _he_ is beloved as Qui-Gon's child. The scent of _mandrangea_ blossoms is associated with Obi-Wan's first love, Siri, in ruth baulding's fics, and she is the first kind memory Obi-Wan cultivates on Tatooine. That stuff was well and good. But then...

Then I was like, “Okay, okay...cool....but what if I used this basis to adapt and retell a Greek myth?” And for some reason my next thought was, “And what if, I rewrote the myth to be specific to Naboo culture. Something Padme would be familiar with, and something _she’d_ draw on for strength, and comfort? What if this myth were diegetic to Star Wars, and specific to Naboo?”

So, the premise of the framing device was that Padme - a woman brought up, and classically educated on Naboo - would own a book of Naboo poetry. It would be one of the few things that she saved from her old life, and it would speak to the idea of her interest and learning in the art of her people. This book would contain a famous Naboo myth, and Padme’s life would vaguely resemble that story.

Each stanza would represent the theme of each chapter, and identify the Impossible Task most relevant to Padme’s own situation. They were as follows.

  1. Sorting the seeds from sand ( _arpat_ \- seed)



In the original Greek myth, Psyche is told she must sort a pile of seeds into their single strains. She manages to do this by enlisting the help of ants. Symbolically, a lot of Psyche’s tasks are unclear, but here I used to suggest the idea of arranging one’s priorities. 

This coincides with Padme being deserted by Obi-Wan, betrayed by her husband, and stuck with two babies on an alien planet with no idea what she’s going to do. In order to survive, she has to start from scratch and sort out the things she needs from the things she’s just carrying around. This is her figuring out, and making a determined effort to commit to her new life, independent of anyone else.

It’s made physical in the destruction of Obi-Wan’s garden, and Padme sorting out the surviving seeds and beans from Tatooine’s sand.

  1. Retrieving the Golden Fleece ( _beskar’gam -_ armor)



Psyche is tasked by Aphrodite to gather golden fleece without being killed by the wild animals around the magic sheep. Potentially, this is meant to symbolise bravery, and I expanded that to explore the idea that bravery isn’t just a violent act, but a merciful one. In The Forlorn Queen, the whale _gives_ the queen the scale because she is merciful in letting him free of the sea grass. She does the right thing, even when it would be to her benefit to take advantage of someone else.

Boil, as a member of the 212th, wears yellow/gold armour - ie. golden scales. By refusing to kill him, Padme proves that her loss and tragedy hasn’t harmed her essential spirit. She has been shown the worst of humanity, but she still _chooses_ to be merciful, and in doing so, she demonstrates the worthiness of her spirit.

  1. Gather Water from a Sacred Source ( _vhekad_ \- sand; _pirun -_ water; _pitat_ \- rain)



For her third task, Psyche must gather starlight from the water of the river Styx. Again, the original meaning here is muddied, but I based my interpretation on the idea that holy water speaks to the cleansing of the spirit and the renewal of faith.

This was a task that Padme facilitates, but does not perform for her own benefit. It is also the task which The Forlorn Queen notes as being for the direct benefit of Shiraya - the queen herself doesn’t drink from the spring.

The way it is explored for Padme is complex, and affects mostly Obi-Wan, as the chapters on Mandalore, and Stewjon are all about him being confronted with the very personification of the Dark Side (Vader), his faith being tested, broken, and renewed, and coming out on the other side ready to step back into the Light. That’s why you’ll find a _lot_ of water imagery in those chapters. Obi-Wan is _thirsty_ while he’s hunting, but he doesn’t drink because he has lost his faith. While he pulls the palace down, the water condenses in the air - he’s being wrung out. And then, they land on Stewjon in the ocean. That is a baptism. From that point on, he eats, he drinks, and in the end, Padme - who facilitated his rescue - brings the final piece of the vaporator home, and Obi-Wan arrives back on Tatooine to the miracle of rain.

  1. Bring Back the Beauty of Persephone ( _be’chaaj’taabir -_ journey [sometimes into death] )



So, task four is unfair because most heroes are only tasked with three things. And this is where Psyche falters. She is sent to retrieve Persephone’s beauty cream from the Underworld, but she disobeys Aphrodite and looks upon the cream - thus, she fails to complete her tasks.

What does beauty cream symbolise? Who knows. I took it to mean the desire to cheat death, and the efforts to gain immortality, to stay forever young and beautiful. But the goal was not to crave it for yourself. This, again, is a task that proves more difficult for Obi-Wan because it has to do with balance, ghosts, and death. 

He has been spending all his time trying to atone for the past, and assure the future, but really - he needed to find balance and peace in himself. Padme tells him as much. But she can’t do this task alone...Korkie helps. And ultimately, just as the gods take pity on Psyche and return Eros to her regardless of her failure, the Force comes to Obi-Wan, and speaks to him as Padme cannot. Obi-Wan cannot see Qui-Gon until he’s ready - until he’s balanced. To walk the line between life and death requires a mastery of the Force, and perfect balance. It’s not until he puts his faith in the Force, puts his legacy in his children (eternal youth of future generations), and consorts with the dead that he manages that peace, completes that task, and is reconciled with his master.

  
  


In the original myth, Psyche and Eros get back together, but in The Forlorn Queen, the young knight is gone. The queen is saved by a fisherman, and though they’re both scarred by loss, they choose to rely on one another. 

***Chapter 1:** **_gehat’ik -_ story**

Now. Some baby Easter eggs.

First, the poetry. Padme is first to quote an ancient Naboo poem written in Ancient Naboo.  
  
“Ten Ileos, ulas lucas.” - “From mercy, into light.” Now, fialleril has said that she deliberately did not want Lukka to mean light in Amatakka because she disliked applying non-diegetic meaning to in-world words. So her root word means freedom. And I loved that.

But...I wanted to give Padme something, too, and I really like that Luke means light, because that is his role in the OT - he IS the Light Side. 

So, I made “lucas” an Ancient Naboo word meaning light, and for extra fun, it also shares a spot in the name of SW’s poetry master himself, George Lucas. Beause, as the creator of this universe, he illuminated the dark, and said, “Let there be light.”

Though this is _not_ the original poem which contained the proverb, it was a common enough saying that later Naboo poets continued to reference it, much as Shakespeare referenced the Greek philosophers and common idioms in his work.

  1. I come to you as I have come before,  
As babes newborn come bleating into life,  
The pink of rosy dawn in flesh adored,  
A stranger to the lash of scourge and strife.  
To plead once more my case for clemency  
And beg you grant the cure for guilt most sweet  
Which flows from you as water to the sea,  
And races 'neath the swift guarlana's feet.  
For though my great offense I apprehend  
I trust your grace is greater than my sins,  
To offer up your hand unto a friend,  
That we might now forget, and now begin,  
To heed the wisdom of that ancient bliss  
That says _Ten Ileos, ulas lucas_.



  
  


Here are a couple more sonnets from Padme’s chapbook:

  1. Once more, once more, I take my leave of you,  
That soul so dear to me as ever thus,  
And though our love be more than passing true,  
This parting yet more certain ever was,  
For being so above me as thou art,  
And being so devoted as I am,  
I bestow unto you my very heart,  
To taste the sempiternal death of man.  
The dewy press of pom seed on my lips,  
The sacred rush of pom juice on my tongue,  
So yielding to Veruna's icy grip,  
As loving her and for you loving none.  
For rather would I drink that liquid vile,  
Than slake my thirst with shadows of your smile.



  1. Perhaps in days to come you'll find yourself  
Pause, standing on the precipice of thought,  
And reach, as for a volume on the shelf,  
And by these holo ghosts you'll stand there, caught.  
If in these present circumstances I  
Should happen to remind you of some grief  
Then better you forget the times gone by  
And let my absence bring to you relief.  
My love is such that strengthens with its death,  
That if it were to fade upon your tongue,  
Or find itself extinguished on your breath,  
Then worthier would it be left unsung,  
So you might break away and carry on,  
The happier for all that I am gone.



Sonnets are what Naboo is famous for, but there are other forms of poetry to be found in its history. One such example is this, in Old Naboo, alongside its Basic translation. It was initially meant to be in the last chapter as something Padme thinks of when Korkie receives Qui-Gon’s lightsaber. The colours referenced in the poem are all the traditional saber colours which lends further credence to the idea that there was more exchange between the proto-Jedi Order and Naboo than the Jedi Archives suggest. But...

  1. The Hunter’s Lust



Original:

Hava est enim hara  
Mava lumata e’misla  
Est heren i’mevin akmat  
Ud’ok mabilitus t’hayat  
  
Translation:

Green is the hunter in springtime,  
Blue is his thirsty eye,  
Red are the rivers and streamlets with blood  
When his bolt indifferently flies.

  
  


Of course, Naboo is not the only planet that we visit, and neither is it the one that uses poetry as a form of cultural expression.

Stewjon’s rhymes are more perfect, it’s forms more stark, sitting somewhat reminiscent of haiku, and generally less focused on romantic love. This, however, is a bit of an outlier, especially in that it doesn’t reference nature, but is one of Ue’s favorites. 

The bonds between mother and child are of great cultural significance on Stewjon, and this brief, traditional prayer, is just one example of how it’s explored art.

  1. The Mother’s Prayer



Original:

Da-rika i’tolu aija  
Da-kalu i’yasho aija  
Da-hana i’baibai aija  
Da-aija wansi issho naui  
Da-ii har’wansi kosh saru

Translation:

May my arms hold you,  
May my hands soothe you,  
May my lips sing your praises.  
Take all my love when you go.  
Leave all your heartache with me.  
  


  
And finally, have an old Iktochi limerick. Just for fun.

1\. There once was a crooked Iktochi,  
Who bought a companion most foxy,  
Was rather annoyed  
To find she was a droid  
And only talked dirty in bocce.


	10. The Eternal Spring: One Shot

_***NOTE:_ **THIS CHAPTER DOES NOT FOLLOW THE PREVIOUS SECTION. IT IS THE ORIGINAL ONE-SHOT PRESERVED, AND WILL BE PLACED AS THE FINAL CHAPTER ON EVERY SUBSEQUENT UPDATE.** _Thank you!***_

* * *

_“Like water in the desert is wisdom to the soul.” ∼Edward Counsel_

* * *

In the end, she only _feels_ as though she's dying. But she doesn't. No one truly dies of a broken heart. Not with medbays, and droids, and bacta, and two devastated Jedi standing guard.

Yoda is quick to resign himself to exile, and she thinks that Obi-Wan would follow, except that she's not dead, and he feels he owes her something – something he means for Anakin, and she's the nearest thing. He stays to give her an apology.

“I have failed him,” he says, voice hoarse with a thousand wordless repetitions. “I have failed him.” And when he's exhausted that mantra, he says, “I'm sorry.”

Padmé knows what Anakin would say to this, but she is merciful, and says nothing. She is not Anakin. She is not the ghost of his worst fears realized. She is not a symbol of Obi-Wan's failure made manifest. She is alive, lungs breathing, heart beating. She is the mother of two infant children who have come into the world earlier than they were meant to, who have slept through the terror and grief of their conception, and who wake now to death. Despair. The extinguishing of Light. She has protected them until now. She has cradled them inside her for months, and she will hold them still for as long as the stars pierce the night. As long as there is life within her. As long as there is hope.

“We'll take them home,” she says.

“I'm sorry, my lady?” Obi-Wan says, unfurling himself from the dark corner of her cabin when he's planted himself these past few days. Though, in space, no solar cycle exists, and she knows he hasn't marked the passage of any such time with either sleep or repast.

“Luke, and Leia,” she says. “The children. We'll all go home.”

Obi-Wan's posture wilts with resignation, as a flower gives up in a drought. “Naboo is a Republic stronghold,” he murmurs. “The Chancellor's roots there are deep, and his poison has infected the minds of the people with rot. The forests of your home will have no spring this year.”

“Then we'll find a summer.”

Obi-Wan shivers, and draws his cloak closer to his trembling form. “My lady, there is nowhere you might escape this Dark.”

***

Tatooine blazes white-hot steel under its twin suns, driving back the night with long twilights, and early dawns, the planet racing on its axis to meet the light, and they arrive in an endless summer.

With the few credits pressed into his hands by a grief-stricken Bail Organa, Obi-Wan purchases a small farmstead beyond the Jundland Wastes. It's been abandoned for years, and the white stone of the upper dome is pockmarked and scorched with experience. None of the farming equipment had survived, and wires hang from the skeletons of infrastructure like veins torn from missing limbs. They walk the perimeter together, Obi-Wan peering critically at the jagged bluffs behind them, while Padmé gazes out over the endless Xelric Draw in front.

“You'll need to get those vaporators working,” he suggests. “There is, perhaps, enough remaining from Senator Organa's donation that you might find a serviceable unit.”

She nods, but says nothing.

“It could be important,” he persists. “Any moisture you might harvest would be useful here. An independent source of water for yourself and the children, and the excess might be sold. It would be good for you to have _something_ if you had to...if there were trouble.”

“You'll help with that, of course,” she says.

His eyes catch hers for an instant, an oasis of blue in the burning desert, but then it's gone as he drops his eyes again, oddly deferential, and stiff. Obi-Wan has always been absolutely proper with her, but he used to be _easy._ He used to smile, and tease, and drop wry observations of various senatorial personalities into otherwise stoic sentences. He used to laugh. Whatever her personal opinion of the Jedi, or their Council, she has never thought of Obi-Wan as anything less than a _friend._ And even though she feels it shouldn't, his withdrawal into rigid formality hurts. When he speaks, she feels more alone than thousands of lightyears, and hundreds of miles of sand have managed.

Obi-Wan bows his head, and apologises. “I'm sorry, my lady, but I cannot stay.”

The cavern between her heart, and stomach deepens, and she can hear the sound of her loss as it clatters down into that pit.

“My lady?” he asks, and she's reminded of Anakin's sly concessions, his feigned impartiality in company betrayed by that indulgent cant of his head, and a wicked curl at the corner of his mouth. It reminds her of Palpatine, who was one of her own, and had always carried a secret in his eye – a private amusement in the gross incompetency of the Senate, and the posturing of ancient, noble men. A joke she thought she'd been privy to when he'd smiled at her across the floor like family. It reminded her of bright eyes, and an eager heart not yet checked by loss and responsibility, long ago, when she was still being sewn into heavy gowns with impossible hairpieces. All these little shreds of innocence she can't take back.

She refuses to give up any more.

“I understand, Master Jedi,” she says, and Obi-Wan's shoulders drop in despair, or relief, she can't tell. And she doesn't care, as she continues, “But I must insist upon your presence until such time as a suitable vaporator unit is located.”

“My lady -”

“Aside from a two-day detour here as a child, and a brief -” but no, she won't share that - “A brief sojourn in the city upon out recent arrival, I have no experience with this planet, these people, or their culture. I am not a mechanic, nor a farmer, and with two dependents to care for you can hardly expect me to be equal to this task.”

He regards her for a moment. She lifts her chin, and keeps her eyes speculatively on the barren framework of the farm as though she is thinking only of its potential, and not of its utter desolation.

“Very well, my lady,” he says, softly. “I shall stay until a unit is found.”

He bows, and she says nothing, waiting until he has disappeared into the black maw of the homestead's door before she drops her head into her hands and weeps.

***

It hardly takes more than a week for such a unit to be procured. Obi-Wan is no mechanic either, and has lost his taste for negotiating, and Padmé hands over the last of their meagre credits with the uncomfortable certainty that they've been taken advantage of. Certainly, the unit itself appears a bit worse for wear. It's plate metal coverings peel away to reveal bright white creases, caked with sand and grit, though she'd initially had assumed the system painted brown.

“You'll see it installed correctly, won't you?” she asks Obi-Wan, as he passes her with another section of the dismantled vaporator. She reaches into the back of a borrowed speeder to retrieve another piece, a long spire of dented metal, and looks behind her just in time to catch Obi-Wan turn away. On the next pass, she presses her hand against his arm. “Won't you?”

“I don't know much about vaporator units,” he says.

“And neither do I,” she replies. “But you know a bit about droids, don't you? About computers, and basic programming. Anakin said that younglings –“

He drops his head, allowing the weight of that aborted thought to slide off the curved lines of his neck, and shoulders, bowed in the humility of defeat. Padmé, for her part, is horrified with herself, torn between an apology, and outright defiance of hurt. Before she can decide on either, Obi-Wan's clipped tones prune any awkwardness between them.

“I'll stay until it's installed.”

***

This next task takes nearly a month. They'd forgone the standard droid patch-in unit, having neither a droid or the credits to purchase one, which meant that there had been no tertiary control to assist with programming for climate parameters or condensation calculations. In the end, they'd erected the central tower on the bare foundations of a previous unit long lost to scavengers. Obi-Wan had rewired much of the badly compromised central comp terminal by hand, and Padmé had been forced to trade her few pieces of jewelry for spare parts, and wire from a peddler woman in the Pika Oasis. They'd elected to keep the speeder, but that was another expense they could only justify for escape, even as they worked to build a permanent residence of the old farm. Fuel had been purchased with a hair pin. The wire with a ring.

“You know,” she says, upon her return, her hands full of mechanical detritus. “The last time we were short of funds on this planet, your master loaded the dice.”

Obi-Wan's hand slips, and a stifled hiss accompanies the quick bloom of scarlet that appears across his palm as he withdraws his hand from the bowels of the water pump.

“Obi-Wan?”

“It's nothing, my lady,” he says. “Excuse me, for a moment.”

He smiles as he brushes past her shoulder, but it's not the one she knows. It's not the one she misses. She drops the pieces beside the vaporator, placing a rock on them to prevent them from scattering on the reckless, open breeze, and follows Obi-Wan inside.

Her eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim greys of underground, but she spies him sitting quietly in a corner on a bench hewn from the stone wall behind him. He doesn't look at her as she approaches, but the tight smile is lifted back into place. A precious pack of bacta plasters is open, the foil curling, and glinting in the shadows.

“I'm sorry, my lady,” he says. “I know we haven't many to spare, but I'd rather it not get infected when we've still -”

“No, no,” she says. “I'd rather you used it, Obi-Wan.”

He looks at her then, as though not quite recognising his own name, before returning to his hand, and pressing the seal against his flesh.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you,” she says.

He flexes his hand, testing the range of motion.

“Nearly good as new,” he declares.

“Are you alright?”

“We should finish with the pump and condensor systems, and cover the rest before second sunset,” he says.

They head back outside, and Obi-Wan bends to his task, determination furrowing into his brow with the ease of years of practice. She kneels beside him, watching. She may not be a duelist of the traditional sense, but she has bandied words with all the skill of one in the galaxy's largest arena for more than a decade. She knows how to spot a weakness in a defense.

The heavy red of a sun – she knows they have names, but she can't remember them now – falls across his hair, igniting it. He swats at a sandfly on his cheek, and leaves a smear of greasy soot. He looks as though he's come straight from his pyre, as though he's only just emerged from the holocaust of Courascant, and she thinks how he's lost his entire world to ash and ruin. Naboo is a planet of a thousand seas.

He can feel her watching, and he looks at her, his eyes clear as a mountain stream, and just as curious. She smiles at him. She can't help it. Though she feels his sorrow as keenly as her own, there is nothing in him that conjures up pity. Darkness haunts him, but it doesn't grow in him. It's a relief. It's a promise. It's a beacon of hope she hadn't recognised, and she's almost certain he doesn't recognise it in himself. But then, Light can blind just as easily as it can illuminate.

“My lady?”

She smiles, but is careful to shield him from the most of it, tossing her head to the side to regard the sunset.

“I'm sorry I'm not more help, Obi-Wan,” she says. “Unfortunately, I've spent more time with bureaucrats than farmers.”

Obi-Wan nods, and is silent, but he pauses as though inclined to break it. So she waits.

“It was a near miss for me,” he says. “And perhaps a willful transgression of the Force's intent, now that I think of it.”

“What do you mean?”

He swaps one tool for another, handing the first to her to be wiped clean of any grease the sand may cling to.

“As a child,” he begins, “if an initiate is not chosen to be apprenticed by thirteen, he's placed elsewhere. I was assigned to the Agri-Corps. An offshoot of the Order designed to assist with agriculture production, and development.”

“But you _were_ chosen.”

He doesn't look at her when he says, “I was not.”

“Well, it can't be as simple as that,” she insists. “You're here, aren't you?”

“Master Yoda heavily _encouraged_ my master to take me on. Against his better judgment. But I could not be swayed. I knew better. I _knew_ I was destined to become a Jedi Knight.” There's force in the words, as Obi-Wan pushes them out into the gentle light of evening. He means more than he can say, and it all comes out in polished niceties, designed to defer insult, but deliver subtle condemnation all the same. “Qui-Gon Jinn was a master of the Living Force,” he avers. “He was attuned to its guidance, and its insight in a way that few are privileged to be. My master was a great Jedi.”

Padmé hears him. But she refuses to listen.“Anakin used to say the same of his,” she mutters.

There's a heavy certainty of failure in his silence. It cannot stand, and Padmé grasps at something, _anything,_ to counter this revelation he thinks he's had.

“He used to say you were the perfect Jedi,” she says. “That if anyone had been born to be a Master, it was you. He looked up to you. He wanted to be you. Be perfect _for_ you. Prove he was capable, and worthy of _you -”_

“And in that too, I failed him,” he says. “I could never be equal to him. To his training, or his strength. If it was in my image he sought to mold himself, then it is no wonder he Fell, with nothing but a pale shadow as his guide. Nothing but the shallow impression of another's greatness.”

She stands, her spine stiff with the regal fury. The heavy spanner hisses as it impacts with the loose sand beside the vaporator, close to Obi-Wan's knee, and he looks up in surprise.

“Anakin's failures are his own,” she says. “And so are Qui-Gon Jinn's. No need to compound your own with guilt for choices not your own, or cling to hurts that were never yours to heal.”

A keening wail breaks the stillness of the moment, and her breath returns in a fevered convulsion. Obi-Wan says nothing. She turns away from him. The sand absorbs the anger of her feet as she makes for the cool peace of the house, and her bright, shining children inside.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [desert flower](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25695031) by [CallToMuster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallToMuster/pseuds/CallToMuster)




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